Tag Archives: silkie

she’s a he?

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She’s a he?

She’s a he!

I question whether this is really blog-worthy, but discoveries like this happen daily at the farm and I totally revel in them. It’s part of the ongoing educational experience of this project and these kinds of happenings continue to elicit a childlike response out of me. It still feels VERY cool to me that I’m here, participating in something like this – living in a trailer with pipes that freeze a lot, fetching fresh water for rabbits and chickens on frozen mornings, etc… Still lovin’ it!

But I digress… this week I discovered that Silkie Wang (one of our original chickens) is actually a rooster. Yeah…we had no idea. We got her – I mean him – from the Langley farm auction last September along with a little silkie, Silkie Wing. We just kind of presumed that they were a mother/ daughter pair and that was that.

However, earlier this week I was tossing some composting scraps into the chicken run – something that Silkie Wang LOVES (she always beats the other chickens to the good stuff) when all of a sudden, she – I mean he – started crowing. Yep, just like that – kind of a rough, warbly cock-a-doodle-do. I swear my jaw dropped. We had NO idea. We’ve never heard him crow before, but it explains a lot now – why he’s so big and why we were never getting any eggs from him.

So yeah, our she is a he. It’s kind of amusing.

This is my life now and it makes me very happy :)

chickens!

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So, our big welcome home present for Chris and Julie was a fixed up chicken coop and ten chickens – our first farm animals!

Last saturday, Matt, Chantelle, baby Canaan and I went to the Langley Farm Auction to check out the chickens and other animals they auction off there.  It wasn’t our plan to leave with chickens, but we got caught up in the excitement of it pretty quick and got right into picking out some favorites from the dozens of crates of chickens they had there.

Matt got serious with his auction paddle and we ended up bringing 12 chickens home (9 hens and 3 roosters) that day.  We didn’t want 3 roosters but they came with the hens, so we found another owner for them the next day, keeping just 1 rooster for ourselves and our hens.

Once home, we put them into the outdoor part of their run while we fixed up the coop, scooping out old poop, tearing down old boards, putting in insulation and new walls, perches, fresh hay in the nesting area and patching the roof. Since then we’ve begun weeding around the exterior and planting some flowers alongside the coop and the run.

We’ve still got some work to do, but we’re pretty excited about our chickens. We’ve got 2 silkies, a banrock(?), a common red hen and 6 Russian Orloffs (including the rooster). We had no idea what the Orloff’s were till we brought them home and it turns out they have a pretty fascinating history AND are listed on the critically endangered species list!  We’re pretty stoked we get to do our part to keep the line alive and give them a good healthy life.

Yay for chickens!!! 

PS – we aren’t planning on eating our beloved chickens, but we will be eating some of their eggs and possibly trying our hand at breeding some of our Russians :)