Adding to the Flock

When I first started on this chicken adventure a year ago, I ordered my chicks by mail from a hatchery in Iowa. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ordering three roosters, and even more unfortunately, they mistakenly sent me four of them, leaving me with just 21 laying hens.

Time, elements, a blockheaded hound dog, and a .22 have whittled the flock from 25 birds to 20 a year later, including the one rooster who met his demise at the business end of my son's rifle because he was just too mean to keep. That leaves me with 3 remaining roosters and just 17 laying hens.

I have been mulling whether or not to attempt to replace the missing birds, and have vacillated between not wanting any more of them to concern myself with and thinking of all the folks who have gotten into the habit of buying eggs from us. No mail-order hatchery will sell fewer than 25 birds, however, and I knew I did not want that many. If I was going to get them, it would have to be locally.

This morning I made my roughly monthly trip to L&M Supply in Cloquet for feed. I knew that they sold chicks, and it occurred to me that if they had them available, I might just come home with a few more. A part of me hoped they were all sold out, but alas, they were relatively well stocked. I took the plunge, and bought 8 more pullets, which will bring my flock total to 28, with 25 laying hens. I'm a bit concerned about how to integrate them with the old guard, and I know that at least two more roosters will have to go before that can happen, but I have four to six weeks to resolve that issue. Lord willing, by early fall we should see a decent bump in our egg production, which has been slipping of late.