Chickens!

We are bringing our LGD home in about a month and want her and her future puppies to protect poultry as well as goats. The best time to train LGDs with poultry is when they are still pups, so we decided that we should go ahead and get chickens now. We've had ducks before so we know mostly what to expect, and adding chickens to the homestead isn't going to take very much additional time or money.

We found a really solid coop for $50 on Craigslist. I already had bedding and chick feed left over from the ducks. We will be building a roost for them later out of scrap lumber we have laying around. Once the chicks are fully feathered and can be outside full time, I will only need to spend about 10 minutes a day taking care of them.

Now the countdown begins to the eggs! I miss having fresh eggs available all the time, laid by birds I know are happy and healthy. We will probably end up with a surplus of eggs like we did with the ducks, and plan to sell any extra at the Southern States feed store in Alexandria.

We are starting with four baby chicks: 3 white Plymouth Rocks and 1 black Australorp. I expect that eventually we will have more, but I want to start small with the chickens and make sure I do it right.