Being 'The Change'

I rarely go a few hours without thinking of my yard or chickens now. How can we be more self sufficient and teach our kids some important lessons along the way? Many Americans are getting back to the more simple things, or common sense stuff. For example, buying organic since spraying the food our children and ourselves will eat with chemicals is harmful. San Diego just changed their laws on keepin chickens, goats and bees because there has been a huge increase in backyard chicken keeping. Instead of talking about change, be the change you wish to see. 60 years ago the American public was encouraged to keep their own flock of chickens and have a garden so we wouldn't be wasteful and your family could depend less on others. I'm not saying I'm without flaws but I'm taking steps to be better.

I like to include as many people as I can on my quest to be the change. So my girlfriends and I took all of our kids to the local feed store to show them chickens, bunnies and anything else they had to occupy a couple of curious 2-3 year olds attention. Im sure the store workers were thrilled to see our troop walk in! Turns out they had fish, tarantulas, snakes, finches etc. the kids were very entertained and that gave me a chance to talk with a lady who is well educated about chicks and the raising of them! After seeing the chicks, talking about the breeds they had on hand and pricing out what we would need to get started, I was getting excited about this new hobby but I didn't want to buy anything without my hubby. So our adventure of change was short but sweet. It did however continue onto lunch/park date which made for a great time.

My mom had come along for the trip and she had me cracking up about her first chick purchasing experience. Apparently my problem with doing everything on a grand scale is in my genes! When my mom had decided to get some chicks (back in the day when her and my father were still together and living on their 5 acre ranch) she ordered 2 of each breed of hens from a catalog to get her started. Turns out there were 25 different breeds... Yes, your math is correct. My mom started with 50 chicks to see how she'd do!!! Ha ha ha see, it's in the genes!

Heath was so onboard with getting chickens that he took the next day off. In the morning we loaded up the family and headed back to the feed store to get our chicks. This worked out because they got another shipment in that morning. The chicks were $3.95 each and after talking about this with my husband, mom and new found chicken guru we had decided on 6 chicks total, 2 of each breed they had- 2 Plymouth 'Barred' Rocks, 2 Rhode Island Reds and 2 Amerucanas (Easter Eggers). They did not have any Australorps until spring or later and since flocks should be raised together we went with the highly recommended (from my mom and chicken lady) the Rhode Island Reds. Our total with a book on raising small flocks was about $80. Not bad for initial costs.




Heating lamp, check. Hay, check. Water, check. Food, check. Ability to leave the poor baby chickens alone, not so much. 3 were hatched on the 18th of Jan and the other 3 were hatched on the 25th (yes i will be celebrating their birthdays). They are cute to watch trample over each other and peck at everything. Even cuter is when they fall asleep while standing there and kind of just slump down onto each other and cuddle up. Growing at a ridiculous rate is their strong suit right now but we are prepared with an even bigger Rubbermaid tub to move them into soon. We have about 5 weeks until they will be in a coop so we need to build it soon. I am researching coop plans and we should have our Redwood planks next week for our garden beds. We also have to research the trees we want. Busy busy but happy happy- peep peep :-)