Chickens in the Woods

The little chicken house in the woods has been empty for a while.  Though two older hens do occasionally wander up there, trying to escape the hustle and bustle down around the chicken wagon, the little coop has not really been in use since last spring.  It is the perfect spot to raise just a few birds at a time, so in August we set the space up as a mini brooder.  It is now home to sixteen lively young poults.  They arrived as day old chicks last month, and by winter they will be ready to leave the house in the woods and join the big girls in the chicken wagon.

 

Our flock of laying hens, we realize, is beginning to age, slow down a bit.  The most productive years of an egg bird are from about age one to age four, when some hens can lay an egg almost every day.  Some of our birds are now almost four. Though chickens typically live 12 or more years and do continue to lay throughout their lives, the number of eggs decreases as they age.  We expect our AARP candidates will continue to contribute, but we have to anticipate that it will be at a more leisurely rate.  If we hope to maintain our current egg production, we will need to regularly add new young hens to the flock.

  

At Green Gate Farm we like to keep a mixed flock with birds of varied ages, breeds, and characteristics.  The most reliably productive layers are the red sex-links, cross-bred chickens that mature quickly and pack their whole reproductive life into their first three or four years.  The unglamorous name for this kind of chicken refers to the strikingly different appearance of male and female chicks, a sexually linked trait which makes almost foolproof the selection of newly hatched female chicks to raise for egg production.  The eggs of our sex-links are standard brown, medium to medium large in size, and the birds themselves are a rather unassuming dusty red.  They may be Plain Janes, but these ladies are certainly champion egg layers.   

The beautiful old style and heritage breed birds in our flock contribute other valuable traits.  These are breeds which tend to live longer and to be consistently productive longer.  We especially look for breeds known to be effective foragers and birds that are able to adapt to extremes of weather.  And we want birds that lay distinctive, beautiful eggs!

The large creamy or peachy brown eggs in your Green Gate Farm dozen are from the Buff Orpingtons, a breed that originated in Britain in the 1800s.  The sky blue or greenish blue eggs are laid by Americaunas, a relatively new breed, but developed from a very old South America variety famous for its exotic blue eggs. By next spring you should also be seeing some eggs that are a lustrous terra cotta or a dark chocolate brown.  These will be from the two new breeds we’ve added: the Marans, an old French breed, and the Welsummer, which originated in the Netherlands.

Here are the chicks on the day we picked them up from Whitmore Farm, a nearby small farm which specializes in heritage breed livestock. 

 And here they are a month later on their first excursion outside in their run.

Though you can only see chicken wire in the photo, the little chicken house in the woods is a fortress. Netted to protect from aerial invaders and surrounded by bulwarks of gravel and earth, it is a safe home for vulnerable little birds.  Once these young ones move in with the main flock, the little house will be empty again, but only for a while.  We're already planning for next spring's occupants, a new generation of chickens in the woods.

For more information about heritage breed chickens, here are some interesting links:

http://www.whitmorefarm.com/

http://modernfarmer.com/tag/heritage-breeds/http://www.livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/heritage-chicken

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