Report from the Chicken Auction

After checking around the local online classifieds, I couldn't find any of the chicks I wanted for a price I was willing to pay. However, I did see an ad for someone who was going to the auction, and we decided it would be a great family activity for Saturday. It was a TON of fun!

I was finding chicks for about $8 per online and we were able to get a 1/2 dozen barred rock chicks (about 2 weeks we think) for $4 a piece at the auction! 

We also picked up the two little fuzz balls in this picture at $2 a piece, that was about the cheapest any of the chicks went for (and we're not sure what these guys are but we do know they are chickens!).

We picked up the lovely "Jenny" who has settled in so quickly she's already gone broody and is sitting at least 1 egg. I have to wait a little longer to check if it's fertile, but we believe she was in with a Roo at the auction, so we're hopeful! Not sure if I'm going to run out and get some more fertile eggs yet or not, we weren't really planning on having one of our hens raise  chicks so quickly!


We got a "Roo" of our own so here is "Lenny!". No one is 100% sure he IS a rooster yet, but he's got a hen look with a rooster attitude & we should find out for sure very soon.


These 3 little cutie-pies are Muskovy ducks. We went hoping to get some Pekins but these seemed much more interesting! After we came home and did a little more research I'm really glad we chose to get them, females are supposed to be very friendly and that is what we wanted.

Henny is not too please about the new occupants

You should always quarantine new chickens for at least 30 days before integrating them with your existing chickens. However, we aren't sure we're going to keep Henny & Penny once we have new chickens to replace them (they just aren't very friendly and they are past their laying prime so producing less eggs), so for us it was worth the risk of introducing a disease into our chicken population. From now on, when we add new chickens we'll have them in quarantine on the other side of the farm.

Billy

We also came home with someone we really weren't planning on... but he's a whole other story!