Friday, June 8, 2012

Around the homestead

Les and I have been wanting chickens for some time now, we had a flock of layers when we lived in China Valley BC, but we have been waiting to live on our own place again since we moved back, now that we are settled here, we got started this spring on our coop. It is not quite finished as Les needs to run the electrical out to it and therefore he can't do some of the finishing yet.
I have on order 50 buff orpington-my favorite! As they are coming from a hatchery and are a heritage breed they are coming unsexed, so we are hoping about half will be female and we will keep for layers and the other half males to be butchered. Buff orps are a dual purpose breed, and they are just beautiful! We also have on order 75 barred plymouth rocks, we are raising 25 for my parents for butchering as well as 25 for some dear friends for butchering, the other 25 I would like to keep a few as layers to compare their quality and frequency of laying, and some to butcher to compare the taste of the meat. We are very excited-however there is fairly long wait list from the hatchery so we will see if they get here before August of not! At least it will be in the cool of fall when we butcher! So here are a few pics of our coop-12x 16 and he still has to make the four runs.

                                             He built his own trusses
                                         




I will add a few more as the work progresses, we are running into bad weather lately and he has been so busy at work, but its getting there! Good thing our babies aren't going to be here for a month or two!

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