Welcome our new additions :)

It's a busy time around here. All sorts of fun things going on around here. It makes me always wonder how all these homesteaders with loads of littles have time to blog everyday. Onto our new arrivals.

Meet the Rhode Island Reds. There are more of those guys. 10 in total but these are their spokespeople. Note I said spokesPEOPLE. That guys who got a little out of control with the green marker is the rooster. He better be a good one. We miss our other RIR rooster, Max. Our mean rooster Prince (who's in the freezer now) ran him off and we miss him. Rhode Island Reds aren't usually the kind of chicken to want to be close to humans, but they're not skiddish either and are great egg layers. They have always performed incredibly well for us so we got 10 of them.

Next, meet the Buffs. Buff Orpingtons. We've always had those. Always. They're fluffy and gorgeous and are fairly good egg layers but they are Mommies most of all. They love to set and make us little babies. And Buffs are one of the friendliest chickens out there. We don't really handle our chickens a lot but if we did they'd love for us to pick them up and whatnot. Just sweet chickens. With ONE exception. This doesn't hold true for their roosters. Our mean rooster that attacked kids and babies and adults and other chickens and ducks and was just mean was a Buff Orpington. So glad to be rid of Prince.
Those yellow Buffs are classic little chickies eh?
Here's a grown Buff Orpington:

Onto the Barred Rocks. I only got 4 of them but should have gotten more. They're my favorite "looking" chicken and ours laid all winter this year. Even when everyone else slowed a little she laid and laid. I should have gotten 10 of them!

Their markings look like this. Don't know why it's just a Barred Rock rear end but whatever.
I love Barred markings.

Next onto the Black Sex Links. Here's another one that are egg laying machines and I regret not having more. But honestly. How many eggs a day do we REALLY need? We'll be getting a couple dozen a day during peak season with all these girls. 2 dozen. Black Sex Links are my least favorite looking chickens but definitely the best layers
Here's a little Black Sex Link pullet (a young girl chicken) so you can see the markings
Last but not least the Ameracauanas or "Easter Eggers". They'll be all sorts of different colors and they lay all sorts of different color eggs. Okay well mostly green but all sorts of shades of green. We always get some of these each year because the kids can pick one for "their" chicken that is a totally different color than anyone else's. Last year we had "Fluffy, Cocoa, and Isabella". This year we have "Nana" (Mom bought em for us and so we bought one that's for her and named after her), and the kids have yet to name theirs. Well they've named them a few times but nothing has sticked yet
The first one is Adric's. You can't see it but it has a cool looking cheetah face. The next is Frankie's. It looks just like his one from last year. The striped head one is Cassie's. It's a cool looking chick for sure. And last but not least. Nana :)

They lived a few days in a box in the house but now live in the trailer that was in the tour thread. They have two heat lamps in there and are healthy and thriving despite it being down in the teens at night. They'll be in there for quite a while. Right now they're only allowed in about a third of the trailer and it's more than big enough. So they should be fairly big before they outgrow it. The hens are mad though because they started laying eggs in there. They walk around it mad and squawking. So I guess I will be finishing up the chicken coop ASAP. Our black australorp has taken to laying on Clay's work bench on the back porch for some odd reason.

Alright off to real life.