Backyard Chickens & Bees

I went with my neighbors to get new chicks today to replenish the ones that have been lost over the past year to raccoons, the inability to get along with the new flock, or the butcher knife (for the two roosters). Last year we got 11 chicks to go along with the two that were [...]

The other night we took on the task of killing and cleaning the two chickens that ended up becoming roosters. The two roosters in question were from the group of chicks that we bought last Spring. The chick supplier claimed to have 90% accuracy for sexing the birds, but we still somehow ended up with [...]

We tried to integrate the young chicks with the chickens a few weeks ago, but George had other plans and constantly attacked the little chicks (they were only about a month old at the time). So, we separated them again and let the chicks get a bit larger so that they would be able to [...]

Well, we introduced the older chickens and the 11 new chicks this past weekend. For now they are being supervised, as George likes to chase them around (she is, surprisingly, the dominant one; Emily is just very vocal about it all: see the video below for a demonstration) and pecked at a few, resulting in [...]

Exciting! We are getting the bees tomorrow. Ruhl Bee Supply is getting all the bee packages in today, but we’re unable to get there until tomorrow. I’ll have to take a half day of vacation to get down there early and avoid the rush-hour traffic along I-205. Still, we’re are all getting ready for the [...]

An e-mail that came in this morning from Matt provides a key to which chick is which. Apparently Claire and Samuel named all eleven of the new chicks, and took photos to aid in identifying them all. The images are below:

I was at home this morning (after having gone to the opening day for the Portland Farmer’s Market and working on various chores) and Matt came by to say that they were heading over to The Urban Farm Store on SE Morrison and wondered if I was interested in joining them. Of course I was! [...]