I should never be allowed to wander on Craig’s List on a Sunday morning, late and just checking on things like stoves and ponies… and of course, CHICKENS.

Do you think there is a 12 step program for chicken fanciers? How many chickens are too many chickens?

All kidding aside… here’s the funny part. You see, I had decided that the chickens I really want to eventually raise will be either Maran varieties or the Americaunas… both of which lay some pretty cool eggs. Distinctive and a little interesting… the various Marans lay super dark eggs and are just really beautiful birds. And the Americaunas, well, they lay tinted green and blue eggs and that is pretty cool, too!

Now, the chicks we hatch will all be half Marans, because we only intend on keeping Maran roosters. We are waiting to see what the little five chicks will be, most likely Copper is a roo, he just seems like a boy for sure! He’s HUGE compaired to the other chickies… But I digress. We plan on just having the Maran roosters because they are known for their calm nature and well, they are just so cool.

But around here, these birds seem to always be in the $5 to $10 range at least! And usually for chicks. Started pullets or laying hens are usually more! And when I ordered our broiler chicks, I tried to order some of the Maran or Americaunas and they were out until like September or later!!! Ah! What to do?

And then… there is an ad. Just posted. 20 hens… Cuckoo Marans, Americaunas and Leghorns. $2 each. Come get them. So you can imagine my thoughts… $2 each? Only a year old? 20 of them?

(We’re calling this lone white leghorn, Floppy Chicken, in honor of Evee’s favorite toy we call Floppy Puppy. It’s a big floppy stuffed dog that she carries EVERYWHERE around the house and such. And this little hen has a floppy comb… it’s kind of funny looking… )

Well, here’s the catch. The lady is working with her kids on some 4H stuff in the house and I can sure come and get some, but that I have to catch them all, since she’s busy! Haha… oh, well, okay. Thankfully they were in a coop, so that helped keep some of the crazy chicken lady antics a bit on the quiet side… but it was still super hot out and trying to catch chickens was hard work!

But I managed to catch 9 by myself and then her husband came out and caught one and in the end, she asked if we could take one more Americauna which was a little bit ornery towards her young daughter. Sure thing. It actually works out kind of nicely… we now have 20 hens and one rooster. Oh yes, and the 5 chicks. And the 2 banty boys… oh yeah, and Einstein. The turkey. Whom is doing very nicely with his new roommates.

Well, I loaded them up in Blue in a borrowed cage from the neighbors that I used for the Banty Boys and was going to take back today, but then forgot… sorry! (I’ll get it back tomorrow!) And cranked up the air for everyone who had their feathers in a fuss and we tootled back to the farm.

I debated with myself for a little while on the way home. How was I going to introduce these girls to the flock without too much chaos and confusion? It would have been perfect to slip them in at nightfall, when everyone was roosting. However, it was only like 3 in the afternoon and I really didn’t want to leave them all in the cage, waiting for hours, when the girls were already a little stressed and most likely, thirsty.

So, I decided that we would take them to the barn and lock them in there for a few hours, and lock our original flock out for a few hours. They were all hanging out under these trees and bushes by the pig barn anyway, and had water at the pump and such, they would be fine. And then new girls would have a few hours to look around the big barn, scratch a little, get a drink, check out the nest boxes and relax. Then in the later evening, I would open up the fence, feed everyone a half box of crackers and then let them start to settle in and start roosting.

Of course, our peep posse had to come and see what that wagon was hauling and then Bucka Roo was delighted to see a whole cage of lovely hens in his realm! He immediately started to do his little Barry White soul dance for the laaaa-deeeees… and of course they were all, “What the heck?” since apparently they were without a rooster in their previous life. It was pretty funny to watch. He is one silly rooster and we just love him to death!

We brought the wagon up to the barn and of course, all the flock had to follow. They were a little confused when we rolled in the wagon load of hens and then closed up the inner fence. They all lined up to watch us unload 11 chickens in THEIR barn.

And as I predicted, the new girls all huddled in the back of the barn, nervous and unsure, keeping to themselves. Maggie got a little crack corn and scattered it in the hay for them and they soon got a hint of the fact that they were in chicken paradise now… they got to snacking on the corn and scratching in the hay and just pretty much checking the joint out. My original gang got bored and wandered off. Maggie took a little corn out for them and scattered it under the cool trees and they were happy. We left them all alone for awhile and went and did laundry.

This evening, around 8 or so, I went back out with a half a box of crackers and some left over peas from dinner, which they adore, and I called up my posse and opened up the fence to let them all in. At first they were more interested in the treats, which was perfect. I crumbled up crackers for everyone, flinging them about to sort of mix everyone up. Of course, Bucka gets his own crackers, delivered by hand, since he’s the boss. A few of my original ladies were picking out their perch spots on the old ladder and settling in after their bedtime snack. Floppy Chicken was the only new girl to test out the ladder roost and Katherine was not pleased. She cawed and flapped and pecked hard on that little fancy leghorn, and shooed her down to the other end. Most of the new girls were content to huddle in the corner and watch. I did go back a little later and everyone had found a spot. Most of the new hens were sitting on the egg hutch, but one or two were on the end of the ladder in the cheap seats. They will be fine in the morning.

When I went out the first time, to join the two flocks together, I was presented with a little clutch of eggs from the new girls! I couldn’t believe it! How cool! And one of them was GREEN! (not quite as green as the picture seems, I think the flash was a little funny… haha… it almost glows!) But it’s such a lovely light shade of green! I love it… exactly what I wanted these new girls for. And there was two very dark eggs, one very very dark, and I know those are the Maran girls. How cool is that? And the last time I checked, I found another lovely green gem laying in a little new nest in the hay. I think we are going to have a lovely array of beautiful eggs in the coming days.

This is really perfect. We’ve been having a little problem. Our original girls will lay about 5 or 6 a day, with occasionally 8 to 10. That gives us about 3 dozen a week, sometimes 4. We will go through at least a dozen… sometimes two a week. So we are this awkward point. Not quite enough eggs to sell, and too many for just us. And we have had people ask for regular eggs and we’ve given away some to friends and they are always thankful, because we make good eggs here at the Windhaven farm! Talk about your free range, happy chickens!

Since a hen will lay an egg about every 36 to 48 hours depending on her age, I think we will start to see about a dozen a day, occasionally a few more. That should give us about 7 to 9 dozen a week… perfect!

Now I do want to add a few more hens to the mix. I really want 3 or 4 Black Copper Marans. I think those are beautiful hens. Then we will have 2 blues, 4 blacks and 5 cuckoo Marans. And we suspect that one or two of the chicks might actually be pure blue Marans! That will be awesome. There is a fellow that lives just over the border into Michigan that raises the blacks… so maybe next week sometime I will see what he has and how my pocketbook looks! His are more expensive birds for sure, but still, they are very special purebreds. We are watching for a few little banty hens for the boys, but that will be a wait and see thing on Craig’s list…

Well, that is the farm story for the day… never dull around here! We love it so! Tomorrow is going to be one incredibly exciting day… our sheepies are coming home!!!!!!! I know it is going to be hard to sleep tonight… but the great thing is that I will be dreaming of my OWN sheep tonight, as they hop that little fence in my brain!

Only one more sleep!!!