Which came first... The chicken or the egg?

At our house... the chicken. We are now the proud and very excited owners of a flock of 20 baby chickens... 10 Buff Orpingtons and 10 Barred Plymouth Rocks... theoretically all hens.

One of the Barred Rocks - showing off his stripes.

Here chick chick chick...

The Buff Orpington

The flock - miniatures at this point.

Hello bright eyes!

Twins... doing what all babies do... snoozing.

Things we have learned so far...

•  Chickens lay approximately 2 eggs every 3 days. (Ours are babies... this comes from research, not experience)
• Baby chickens make a lot more than just peeping sounds. Did you know a chick can make a very musical purring noise? (This one is from experience!)
• Chickens are not as much work as everyone makes them seem! (This is both from experience and research)

And finally... one that really surprised me...

• Chickens are fun! I never thought that I would get such a kick out of watching my dinner practice flying and that their reactions to honeydew seeds would crack up the whole family. But they really are fun little animals! 

 Why are we raising chickens? Several reasons... The main one being homeschool. Raising chickens is a great homeschool project. You get to learn about chickens - different breeds, what it takes to care for them, how they grow etc, but you also get to learn responsibility (they depend on you... and they are food, so you want to take good care of them.) some basic financial skills (you have to make sure you have enough money to buy their food, etc and if you are going to sell eggs, you get a whole different part of finances.) in our case, you get to practice measuring, cutting and beginning fencing. (We are all going to work together to build the chicken yard) and if you, like us, start out without any knowledge about chickens at all, you get to really practice your researching skills. (I like that part... I enjoy researching and was up until about 1am reading about chickens last night... I'm learning all kinds of cool things! And yes... my kids are the ones being homeschooled... lucky for me, homeschooling is a family affair!)

Anyhow, this is our homeschool project for the summer. The chicks are only a week old right now and will be indoors for another month or so, then we will move them into what will hopefully be a well fenced, relatively predator proof yard in the old garden bed.

I'll keep you posted!