June 11 is the Day!

June 11, 2010-that's the day! Re-flocking!

I'm very excited to have girls again in the garden! On Friday, June 11 we will be in receipt of a friendly delivery of 6 pullets. Hubbard's Golden Comet to be exact. I think we have had one of them before, Silver Belle. She must have had some Golden Comet in her for she was the right coloring and friendly and an egg-laying machine.

That's what we want...6 little egg machines!
So ready yourselves to get on the "rotation".

However, we will be on egg watch for a while...these are just little 6 week-old pullets. They are not expected to lay until they are about 12 weeks. This will be fun! Last flock we had came to us as full-grown layers. Silver Belle was the only one who would regularly come up to us, usually following us around the garden. The other five were more nervous. And Silver Belle was at the bottom of the pecking order too.

So you may be wondering what happened to our last flock? Well, my friends and family know this story, but for anyone new reading this, I'll explain. But first SPOILER ALERT. The story can be icky for some, although I'll skip over the details.

We had our girls for 2 1/2 years and eventually they stopped laying. So they became eaters instead of productive participants in our little urban farm. So we sent Silver Belle back to the farm for breeding (NO boys allowed here), and ...
We butchered the other 5. Yes we did it ourselves with the help of a wonderful farm friend who showed us how.

Very humanely done, mind you! Our friend and Brian dispatched the birds. There was a big pot of hot water to dunk them in after to loosen the feathers. We tied them by the feet in the barn and hung them up to pluck. And then our friend taught me how to clean and eviscerate them. It was all rather fascinating actually. I thought I would cry since we were dumb enough to name them. But actually something rather primeval took over and it was a job to be completed.

I will tell you, they are the most delicious chickens we have ever eaten! We raised them completely organically. They had plenty of fresh organic feed and time in the garden or chicken run for bugs and greens. They drank freshly filtered water as well as fresh unpasteurized whey. Never any chemicals or drugs of any kind. Just like our grandparents or great grandparents would have done.

We are all only a couple generations from this practice being common knowledge for everyone! And being happily at the top of the food chain, I was eager to learn the skill.

Our new girls are all one breed and hopefully will be more difficult to tell apart...therefore making it more difficult to name them. And their ultimate fate will be a stew pot as well. But we will enjoy them and their eggies for a few years first!

Sarah