Tag Archives: easter egger

Sad News

I know I said no more updates until the chicks came, but while they are still on schedule for delivery tomorrow, there has been a sad development.

My Pet Chicken contacted us today about one of the chicks we had ordered, the Easter Egger.  It seems that the hatchery had something terrible happen, and they lost 17,000 of their hatching Easter Egger chicks.

So we will not be getting Frederica (or “Freddie”) as we had already named her.

The weird thing is, last night I dreamed we had been contacted because something had gone wrong, and they were no longer able to send one of the chicks. I woke up worried about which one it was, and hoping it wasn’t one of the rare and difficult to get ones (we can get Easter Egger chicks locally).

Everyone cross their fingers that everything goes ok with the shipment – we don’t want any more tragedies….

Chicken Progress Update

After a massive amount of indecision over wire (who knew it came in so many different types!) we bought wire and materials for the foundation.

Trenches, where the soon-to-be-buried wire will keep rats and other critters from digging into the coop.

Nearly everyone I mention the future chickens to has one thing to say: “I want to buy your eggs!”  Seriously, it’s becoming pretty well known how horrible store-bought eggs are (even so called “free-range” or “organic” eggs.  Usually all that means is that instead of the laying hens being penned in wire cages the size of a sheet of paper, they’re given “free-range” in a barn.  Packed together so tightly that they can hardly move, much less find any grass or bugs to eat.  Cannibalism and deaths are rampant.  Today’s “frankenstein chicken” is genetically bred so that it grows up from chick to hen so quickly that its bones can’t keep up.  These chickens often can’t stand without the serious risk of snapping their bones.  It’s wrong, and really sad.  No wonder there’s no taste comparison between those eggs and eggs raised the right way.

Contrast that to this (and these are actually chickens rescued from a factory):

Here’s another of the breeds we are getting: the Easter Egger.

Here’s a chick (the Easter Egger is the one hamming it up for the camera!)

And, given their name, you might not be surprised to learn the color of their eggs.  Yes, these hens do lay blue or green eggs!