Brooding...

CAUTION!!  Photo heavy post!!  Baby Photos!!  :)

Hello!

Our family has grown... by 52!!?

It has been a plan of ours to have laying chickens here at Schnick Acres.  Our first thought was to purchase 10-12 laying hens, however after some thought we decided that having a full flock (hens and roosters) suited our homesteading goals more.  After searching online, Derek found a poultry breeder that specialized in  heritage birds well suited for our colder Canadian climate.

This is where fate takes its turn.  Derek found a breeder of Chanteclar chickens with her last 'batch' of hatchlings for the season due to hatch within a day or two!  The timing would see us with egg producing birds before the winter snows arrive.

Having originated in Quebec in the early 1900s, the Chanteclars are very tolerant to our cold winters - one of only TWO poultry breeds to have originated here in Canada!  They are a very gentle, friendly bird that is sadly on the US Conservation "critically endangered" list and on Canada's RARE bird list.   We did some reading and decided that this might be the chicken for us.  We also corresponded with JoAnn the poultry breeder via e-mail.  Her answers were so clear and concise with a light hearted humour to them ("you can't get in over your head with chickens - if your flock becomes too much or too big, you can just eat them!")

With the thought of perhaps needing to brood a larger number of chicks, Derek set to building a larger brooder.  This posed a dilemma.  Our temperatures this summer have been fluctuating dramatically and our overnights have been cold making putting baby animals in the barn or the workshop unsuitable options.  Wouldn't it just happen that my craft room would be the perfect size for our brooder box?  And it has ceiling tiles that can be removed to expose floor joists for hanging the heat lamp and a door to keep out our MaineCoon cat, Micro.

With brooder box set, chick feed purchased, our family took a drive to meet 'JoAnn' at CirrusHill farm in Meaford, Ontario on Saturday morning. What an amazing experience.  JoAnn treated our family to a tour of her farm where we were able to see many different types of poultry and ask all of our chicken questions.  Walking her farm, we were greeted by flocks of  turkeys, chickens and guinea hens who were interested in seeing what we were up to.. or if we had a treat or two at least!  There were also some horses to catch Nicole's eye and friendly farm cats for Krista to 'love on'.  We spent a wonderful two and a half hours in Meaford.

It wasn't long into our conversation with JoAnn that we sensed her real admiration for ducks and it wasn't too much longer after that that I sensed Derek's interest in adding ducks to our feathered family.  We brought home ten little Welsh Harlequin ducklings.  Welsh Harlequin ducks are also on the critical endangered list.

In the end, we brought 42 little chicks and 10 little ducklings home with us.

Now as anyone with farm experience will tell you, you need to plan for a premature passing or two.  I feared the worst when we opened up our transport boxes at home and I worried again after their first night in their new home, but I am very pleased to say that we still have 52 little chirping mouths and scurrying feet in our nursery.

And now for the cuteness overload:

Little duckling

Ducklings make good pillows for little chicks.

A whole lot of cuteness and a whole lot of poop.  :)

Jeanette