Sold 16 chicks

I sold 16 chicks today.  I looked at the coop today - the full layer pen, the full grow-out pen and the full brooder pen, and I decided that I had gone overboard on hatching chicks - especially since I have more in the incubator.

So I sold 16 of the chicks - a combination of Easter Eggers, Araucanas, Exchequer Leghorns and some I'd bought at the Co-Op and TSC.  A young family with 5 children bought them, and they were really happy with their new little flock.

I kept 2 Araucanas, the 2 Blue Isbars and 5 of my Easter Eggers.

A Chicken-Related Weekend

Yesterday morning we sold Red, the Rhode Island Red/New Hampshire mix rooster along with a Black Orpington rooster.  I was actually glad to see both of them go - but for different reasons. Leroy, our EE rooster, and Red were constantly competing for the favors of the hens.  And Leroy usually won since he's the more dominant one.  And I didn't want Red to sire any chicks.  I only want blue or green egg chickens to be breeders.   So Red went to a place where the woman only had 5 hens and no rooster.  He is probably much happier now because he will be the only rooster at his new home - and he'll have all the hens to himself - at least until the Black Orp starts giving him a little competition.

I was glad to see the Black Orp go because he reminded me of how I was taken on some hatching eggs.  A woman advertised on BYC about how she had a wonderful "Chocolate Orpington" project going.  Thinking I was getting Chocolate Orpington (very rare!) eggs - or at least a darker or richer buff color, I paid a ridiculous price for the eggs - and hatched out two Black Orpingtons (very common).  I sold the female chick along with other pullets a couple weeks ago.  Now with the male Black Orp gone, I won't think about that unfortunate mistake so often.  Live and learn.

Yesterday morning we also had to do our first culling.  Our young Araucana rooster was acting very sick - unable to hold up his head and extremely lethargic.  He was obviously near death, and we knew that the kindest thing we could do was to humanely cull him.  If he had an illness, we needed to get him away from the other chickens immediately, and if it was because of an injury, the other chickens would peck at him.  Ron took care of it for me, and we buried him nearby.  None of the other chickens are acting sick at all - so we're wondering if maybe he flew into a wall or something and had internal injuries.  Whatever happened to him - I was sad to see him go.

Our other chicken-related activity was building the fence wall in the run to separate the middle pen from the large pen.  Now the 11 Swedish Flower Hens can go outside each day.