Hillside Community Garden (CSA)

The story of our first chicken raising experience - Spring, 2008: 

On May 2, Anna and her dad purchased 17 week old Isa Brown pullets (future egg-laying hens) from the co-op. We put them in a old rabbit cage with newspaper and wood chip bedding. They require a heat lamp - basically a light bulb, all the time until their feathers start to come in. The hope is that we'll have eggs by October. This page will be dedicated to following this adventure.

The chickens at about 3 weeks old (above)

By the middle of May, the chicks were too crowded in the first cage so we fenced in a 4' by 8' section off in our barn to temporarily hold them until we built their permament coop. See the chicks at about one month old below:

On May 31 we moved the chicks to their new coop in the barn. The new coop is 8' by 16' and has a door to an outside "yard."

Below is a picture of the hens in their yard at about 2 months:

Picture below taken on July 28, 2008. We are moving the fence around every week or so in order to give the hens more vegetation and to keep them from tearing all the grass out.

At the beginning of September, we began to get eggs. Almost every hen laid an egg each day, giving us on average 15 eggs per day from 16 hens. Most of the eggs are in the large to extra large category with an occasional 'double yoke' or jumbo.