zeromilecommute

Archive for the ‘Chickens’ Category

Well my new baby chicks catalog just came in the mail over the weekend.  I love to look through the catalog and think about what exotic chicks we’ll be getting this spring. 

 Sigh!  We always get the same kind. LOL!  But I still like to think about different ones anyway.

Our breed of choice is Barred Rock, or Plymouth Rocks.  They are a hearty breed, good layers, that lay nice brown eggs, but can also be meat birds too.

We also have Shadow, an Aracauna hen, or as they are sometimes called, Easter Egg chickens, because they lay colored eggs.  Shadow lays green eggs, and got her name because she and a Barred Rock named Emily, follow my 3 year old granddaughter all around the yard.

We won’t be getting new baby peeps until April or May, but it’s still fun to look at the pictures of new life when it is cold and snowy outside.

With the current economy the way that it is, have you been thinking about becoming more self-suffient?  Maybe having a garden, getting some chickens for the fresh eggs?  I know my family has.

Pretty much ever since we’ve been married, except for the 4 years we lived in the city, we’ve had a garden.  We always canned and or froze our produce because they just plain taste better.

This year though our garden will be slightly bigger with a few more varieties of vegetables.  And what we don’t grow ourselves we will be purchasing at the Amish Farm down the road.

With all the worry about salmonella and E-coli, we try to buy local.  We have our own chickens, so fresh eggs are always at hand.  We buy our potatoes from the farmer that plows the snow in our driveway in the winter. 

So that’s what we are doing little by little to become more self-suffient.  What if anything are you doing?