Michelle finally got her wish to raise some chickens when we picked up 3 chicks from Pistils Nursery. We’re starting with 2 Jersey Giants and a Plymouth Rock, and the girls have already grown by 50% since they moved in. I’m not so keen on the chicks themselves since they kind of smell, but I’m excited to help make the coop and to have nervous pet birds walking around eating bugs and scraps.
Several of our friends have been raising hens for a couple years, so we’ve gotten a lot of helpful advice on all aspects of the process. Our neighbors 3 doors down showed us their coop this weekend (they have a brood of slightly older chicks now as well) and were eager to share both the design flaws and benefits of their coop design. Yesterday I spent a little over an hour using Google Sketch-Up to design a to-scale model, which we’ll need to start building soon.
We each got to name a chick. Michelle picked Layla, Michelle picked Boots (for Ella), and Michelle shortened my pick (Bitchzilla) to just Zilla. The Jersey Giants are already a head taller than the others and seem to have a bit of an attitude (hence Bitchzilla’s name).
Here’s another picture of the ladies in their temporary home:
I had no idea you were going to do this! That’s very cool. When I do my dream redo of my rooftop, it’s going to be combination coop, garden, patio, and solar array. Are you _sure_ your chicks were properly sexed? No roosters!
You can take them out of Yakima, but you can never take Yakima out of them. Cool stuff, I’m eager to try your home grown eggs.
Cute! I’ll be interested to see how it goes… we considered chickens ourselves but ultimately decided against it. Some weeks we barely have time to take care of our fish. Pretty sad huh?