What We've Got So Far

Currently my husband and I live in a 900 sq ft house that has 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. We have a single car garage that has been added on at the back and the side so it allows more storage. Our backyard is a pretty good size but it's not what we're used to, at least half an acre. I think our whole lot is about 1/8 of an acre. We don't have any kids as I have health issues that have ixnayed my fertility. We do however have two amazing dogs - Princess, who we took in after she spent her first 6 years with my husband's sister, and Ringo (as in Johnny Ringo from Tombstone) that we have had since he was 6 weeks, he will be 5 in June. They are both Queensland Heelers which are known to be working dogs that have to have a job or they tend to be destructive. They have also been amazing guard dogs for us to the extent that it is hard to have visitors that they don't know.

Princess in front and Ringo in back

We have three garden beds in our back yard, two are 4' by 4' and one that is 10' by 2'. I planted a few things in the fall and only had my pumpkin come up, which died with an early frost. I already have most of my other vegetables coming up but a few are thin so I'll be seed starting a few of those in the house here shortly. I have a chicken coop with three lay bins and a full 10' by about 3' of running space for them when they are not free-ranging our back yard.

We went last year to a couple local feed stores and bought chicks; our first batch was five bantam (smaller breed) chicks and when we realized at least two of them were roosters we checked out a different store for silkie chicks which we were lucky enough to find two left. When we got them home it was super nice out so we put them right out in the chicken run with the other chicks that were about two months older. We went out every half hour or so to check on them and make sure nobody had escaped when we saw one of them had just died. It was incredibly heart wrenching so we quickly brought the other chick in the house, set her up by herself and went out to find more silkie chicks. We couldn't find a single chick under a month old so we took the youngest we could find which happened to be a full sized breed rather than a bantam breed; thankfully she was about a month old and quickly took to our little chick to help her along and acclimate with the other chicks. About a month later I went into the feed store where we were able to find our silkies and found they had a large amount of them but a significant amount (at least half) looked to have some sort of infection so I quickly grabbed two that were healthy and surprised my husband when I got them home... both turned out to be roosters.

We are now down to five chickens total with our rooster being a white silkie, we've got Fluff Muffin our silkie survivor, Momma that is our full sized hen, and Minerva and Hermione that are the two that have remained from the original group of chicks. Initially they all had names of characters from Harry Potter but then we started butchering roosters and it went down-hill from there.

Fluff Muffin standing in the front with Momma standing behind her