Backyard Beginnings

09/15/2021

New Nest Boxes! They were made this past weekend from some leftover scrap wood (untreated). This is Diamond; our resident super-broody White Phoenix Hen (she has hatched our multiple batches of chicks - partially because she is so sneaky at stashing eggs until it is too late to try to stop her). Her twin is Daisy; who is rarely broody and also has golden eyes instead of brown!

Fun Fact: Phoenix Chickens do not molt their tail feathers! The roosters can have tails reaching 3 feet or more!

08/16/2021

❤📸🐥🐓🐥📸❤

Photos of our flock in the last 2 weeks! The chickens aren't normally on concrete; but since I gave them diced green pepper I put their snack there for easier findings.

In the full flock photo: you'll notice our fully grown Flock Rooster. As previously mentioned he was severely frostbite during our abnornal deep freeze early 2021. He went into the rafters of a shed with some escapee hens (who he kept warm) but it resulted in a loss of half a comb and multiple ends of toes. He does not appear to be in pain, and has successfully bred each adult hen since then. Additionally you'll notice his yellow coloring; this is sun bleaching rather than color leakage. When he hatched and when he has a molt, his feathers come back a vibrant lavender gray just like the young rooster's are right now.

At present we have:
2 Adult White Phoenix Hens
1 Rhode Island Red Hen
1 Adult Lavender Orpington Rooster
1 Lav Orp Cockerel
1 Adult Lav Orp Hen
2 Started Lav Orp Pullets
3 Black Colored Lav Orp/Phoenix Chicks (1 cockerel, 2 pullets, probably)
3 Black Colored Lav Orp/Rhode Island Chicks (2 cockerel, 1 pullet, probably)
7 Lavender Orpington Chicks (1-2 cockerel, 5-6 pullets, probably)

Most of the cockerels will need rehomed. Please PM the page if you are interested in taking a cockerel or pullet at a later date, potentially for a rehoming cost, color/breed dependent. We will decide later on to whether tk rehome our Older or Younger Lavender Orp Roos.

07/27/2021

Video of Our Chickens yesterday 🥰🐥🐔

We still have chickens!

07/15/2021

Our current flock! Plus 2 closeups of our hen with 14 chicks 😅

I need to get an updated photo of our old roo, too. You can't tell in this photo, but he had frostbite back during the arctic freeze earlier this year. 😞 Luckily he has recovered well, and the injuries clearly haven't slowed him down... he did father all these chicks 😆

07/06/2021

Wow, it's been a long time since updating. Since February we've had a crazy bunch of things happen in the family. Including the birth of our second child!

But as far as our Backyard Broods, we added some Lavender chicks earlier this year. And have 3. And we have had 2 hens surprise us with hatching out 2 batches of chicks in the last 3 weeks.

The first was our White Phoenix who hatched the Lavender Orpingtons eggs we purchased last year. She hatched a small brood of black chicks that are White Phoenix crossed with a Lavender Orpington roo (aren't chicken genetics crazy?). She's got 3 of them and they are 3 weeks old now.

The second was our unexpected LARGE hatch by one of our Lavender hens from last year. There are 11 LAVENDER CHICKS AND 3 BLACK CHICKS (which are more likely to be the cross of our Rhode Island Red and the Lavender Orp Roo, since the big hens bunch their eggs and the small ones bunch their own elsewhere.)

The large brood of 14 were hatched on the 2nd and 3rd of July and made their first venture outside the shed/coop this afternoon.

Nearly all of them will end up re-homed at a later date. I've got our 4 week old human baby to handle along with our 2 year old!

02/01/2021

Just a general update: we have decided to transition away from keeping the rabbits until the kids are a bit older and we have more space/time to dedicate. We also had an illness knock out our breeding females, and it is still unclear what from due to no outward signs. It was quite upsetting, but cemented our decision to wait on restarting this venture. Accordingly, most of our rabbit stock is now gone and the rest will likely be transitioned out over time.

We may have some equipment sanitized and available for anyone interested at a future date.

We will also be expecting kiddo #2 around June! So time will be at a premium and waiting another year or so to expand again will be ideal.

However, we are still keeping our chickens and had some setbacks this summer with a local hawk. At present we still have our White Phoenix ladies; our apparently ever resilient Rhode Island Red: Poppy (she got attacked by a hawk and managed to recooperate); and a Lavender Orpington Hen and Roo.

We may add another Lavender hen sometime this year. I've considered trading our Lovely Phoenix Ladies, but one of them is our broody gal who hatched our Lavender eggs last year.

All told this was an eventful first year and had many teachable and joyful moments. ❤❤❤

07/17/2020

Shared by another page, but too funny to not share!

Photo credit came from:
https://images.app.goo.gl/PsrhcoFFb7giAJ7H8

Pro Tip!
Photo source: https://images.app.goo.gl/PsrhcoFFb7giAJ7H8

06/20/2020

The story of the missing chicken, named Poppy, here in the Backyard. 🐓🐓🐓

06/14/2020

🐇🐇🐇BATCH 1 READY FOR REHOMING NOW!!! Please PM the page if interested! 🐇🐇🐇

*** Look at captions of individual photos to see gender/if already interested party/rehome already! ***

06/14/2020

🐇🐇🐇Hey everyone! All 8 bunnies from Batch #1 are ready for rehoming today!!! The rest are available Saturday!! I will finally get their updated pictures posted throughout the day!🐇🐇🐇 Please PM the page!

06/02/2020

4 little Lavendar Orpington Chicks!!! I'll give the 5th til the end of day before I risk candling it, but I suspect it is a loss. They're so cute! ❤🐓❤🐓❤🐓❤🐓❤