🐣 Meet Our New Chicks!

🐓 Welcome to a special day on our farm! I We’re introducing our newest, fluffiest additions – a bunch of adorable baby chicks!

We have 10 assorted layers, 8 Silkie Bantam hens, and 2 Silkie Bantam roosters. The Silkie Bantams are soft, cuddly, heat-tolerant, and incredibly sweet. They are covered in feathers from head to toe! Silkies are broody and make excellent mothers, so we’ll keep them to incubate eggs and care for chicks. They typically lay 3-5 cream-colored eggs per week.

We now have 10 Black Jersey Giant Chickens that we also plan to breed and raise. They are the largest dual-purpose chicken breed that grow to a substantial size, but they do so slowly. They lay about 3-5 large brown eggs per week, are a sustainable heritage breed, and have a calm, docile temperament.

We have recently added eight more Egyptian Fayoumis, including five roosters, to our flock. This ancient breed, dating back to the time of the pharaohs, is closely related to the Campine. While uncommon in the United States, they are prized for their resilience to many poultry diseases. As active foragers, they are well-suited for our chicken tractors. Fayoumis are excellent producers of white eggs, laying 3-5 per week, occasionally go broody, and are remarkably hardy in hot climates.

Our day-old chicks are kept in a homemade brooder located in our sunroom. The brooder helps ensure the chicks are healthy, eating, and drinking properly. We also check daily for “pasty butt,” which occurs when a chick’s poop dries and hardens beneath its tail feathers, blocking the vent. If left untreated, this condition can be fatal. Once they’re old enough, we’ll gradually introduce them to the rest of the flock.