The chickens have come home to roost

We got sheep a while ago. We had wanted goats, but our initial inquires lead us to believe that goats would be very hard to find. A message came that two goats were available. We were not really ready, but we jumped at the chance. Then the message came, "oh, they are what you would call sheep, not goats, do you still want them?" Well, we got sheep. And in hindsight everything worked out for the best. We like sheep and I think they are doing well for us.

But sheep were never meant to be our first livestock project. Chickens are what everyone starts out with. Eventually we would need to get some chickens.


We began building a chicken coop.



But there is so much work to do here, that progress on the coop was slow. Then we learned my parents were going to visit. My parents grew up on farms. My Mother's farm in North Western Ohio raised thousands of chickens during the 1930's to supply eggs to New York City.

We accelerated the construction of the coop. Several days after my parents arrived, the coop was finished.



With my Mother along to check out the chickens, we drove to the village of Patchakan. There we purchased three hens, for $3.50 bz a pound. This amounted to $20 US for the group of birds.



The very next morning we were very pleased to find two eggs. This is unusual, as transporting chickens is enough to throw them off laying for a while. These local chickens do not normally produce an egg every day like the laying chickens in the US do. So the next morning we were not surprised to find no eggs. But in the afternoon, there were two more eggs. At least one of the hens is laying an egg every 1.5 days. Possibly two are and one is not laying at all.







Pleased with the chickens, we purchased a rooster from our friends in Xaibe. The rooster cost $10 US.



We also obtained two young hens for free from our friends, as they had been waiting for us to finish our coop so they could give us a pair of hens.



My Mom has always liked watching chickens.















I have always been interested in the improvement of domesticated plants and animals. With the arrival of the hens from Xaibe, I became interested in the genetics of color in chickens. A bit of reading on the internet indicates that the color genetics of chickens is amazingly complicated and interesting.

Of course I am also interested in production characteristics. Here the situation is complicated by the difference in conditions and care of chickens in the developed word versus the developing world. Also the temperature conditions here are a factor in chicken production.

But for now, I hope to learn enough that the chickens do well.