Chicken saga

You know how I blithely wrote last week how we were probably going to get more chicks this year because most of our hens were getting old and not laying as much? Well, with egg prices these days the thought, "We should get chickens must have passed through more than a few people's heads. 

On Saturday, I was sitting down for a few minutes after lunch and thought I'd just do a quick search to see what chick prices were these days and what various hatch dates were. We had already decided not to order through our local farm store because their hatch dates were too early and I'm done with chicks in the house. At this point I was blithely thinking I would be deciding between many options. 

And then reality set in. I looked at some websites and reality began to dawn... all their chickens were sold out having been pre-orderered. Actually I should clarify. All their pullets (female hens) were sold out; I could buy as many roosters as my heart desired. My heart desires no roosters. We already have a rooster. One website put a notice on their front page that they had no chicks available, try next year. At least that one saved me the time of finding that informed out for myself.

Eventually two hours and eight websites later I found a farm that was selling fifteen hens for a really decent price that wasn't marked as sold out. Hooray! The hatch date? Mid-July. Yes, our chicks will be arriving in July which means we probably won't see any eggs from them until next year. The plus is that it will definitely be warm enough to brood them outside. Please don't suggest it might be too warm and the chicks will need to come inside to keep them from overheating. I'm going to live in my happy fantasy land where chicks can safely live outside and not in the house.

And in totally unrelated news, here are the Valentine's Day cookies that K. decided to make for everyone today.