Yesterday, just after the break of dawn, we had to go pick up this year’s first batch of twenty cornish cross chicks who were waiting for us down at the post office…

They filled one rack in our brooder and all look healthy, so we’re happy. In eight to ten weeks we’ll process them and they’ll fill our freezer.

We still have our twenty or so laying hens, too, which are producing more than a dozen eggs a day now!

We collect most of them every day but some we’ve left for the broodier hens to sit on…

We have two who want to sit on clutches now and the other one who hatched out a few chicks but only managed to keep one alive.

This one…

It’s super cute and friendly and follows me around when I’m out there. I’m always afraid I’m going to step on him (with my luck it’s probably a rooster!). 😄

He’s still quite little so his momma won’t be hatching any more out any time soon. We’ll let these other girls try their hand at rearing a few chicks and we’ll see if we can sell some and maybe keep a few in order to replace any we lose from our layers.

I do like getting so many fresh eggs and thought of selling some but there’s not enough to do that and also share with the pups and save back for emergencies by freezing and dehydrating. We’d have to triple the size of our flock for that, I’m afraid.