Our Flock Grew!

Steph and I dream of a day where we can own some of our own land and build a lifestyle that brings our family closer to the Lord and closer to creation. We dream of having a cut flower garden full of a variety of different beautiful flowers that Steph can harvest for cut arrangements. We dream of having a fruitful vegetable garden that produces well for our family. We also dream of having chickens, goats, and probably a few pigs also! The farm-style life is a dream we both share and where we are now is the perfect training ground for that!

Back in February, we got chicks for the first time. It has been so fun watching them get larger and move from being indoors to their new home outside. Our flock of 5 though just felt a little small and so we recently picked up 4 more baby chicks to help it grow!

Only recently have we started gathering some of our first eggs. This flock currently lays just enough for me to have fresh eggs for breakfast. A couple of our hens are just about to start laying so hopefully all five will be laying soon and we will start to have some farm-fresh eggs to start baking with also!

We love how their use in our backyard homestead is more than just generating eggs. They actually play a rather large role throughout the year. Most of our leftover food scraps go to feed them. They turn that into manure which ends up being a nitrogen-rich fertilizer for our garden! And well, I just like watching them. haha

Raising chicks is really simple and they are probably the easiest and most rewarding farm animal to have. Baby chicks primarily just need bedding, water, food, and heat to be happy. Add in some holding time to keep them use to people and you are easily growing your own flock.

When they are grown hens their chicken run and coop are almost just as simple. They don’t take as much room as you would imagine and the only real effort added is letting them out in the morning and putting them away at night.