Don't count your chickens before....

...they hatch!

Well I'm not counting them yet, but I do have a few eggs wiggling and a little chirping going on!

My wait for some Swedish Flower Hen(SFH) chicks is about to come to an end. I ended up bidding on and winning an eBay auction for 20 eggs from a person in Pennsylvania. It wasn't great planning on my part as they were shipped over the 4th of July holiday week so they sat for a day somewhere in the postal system. Add to that the extremely hot and steamy temps we had that week and it made for less than ideal shipping conditions for fertile hatching eggs! They were package very well, none were broken or cracked on arrival. In addition to the 20 SFH eggs I also bought 10 Wheaten Marans eggs from the same person. Those too were in great shape when I unpacked them.

The eggs arrived on Friday July 6th. With how hot that week was I decided to set the eggs in the incubator right away instead of letting the air cells settle for 24 hours, in case they had started to develop during shipping. I just waited 24 hours before starting the auto-turner instead. This is my first time using our new R-com King Suro incubator. It's all digital, has a turning cradle and automatic humidity pump. So far it's been keeping the temp and humidity levels perfectly!

I candled the eggs on day 17 before they went into "lockdown". It looks like 10 SFH eggs will potentially hatch along with 6 Wheaten Marans. I'm not sure if I will keep the Marans chicks or not at this point. I was disappointed in the color of the eggs. I know Marans eggs have a range of colors but I expected them to be as dark or darker than my Penedesenca eggs. So I may put those chicks up for sale.

You can see a couple of the Marans eggs in the right corner in this picture.

In other news, we acquired another chicken coop! There was a 4' x 4' coop on Craigslist that we went to look at. I had been thinking about having a smaller coop that size built, possibly for some Silkies.  I'm not sure if we will get into Silkies or not, but it will work perfectly for a breeding coop. I will be able to have purebred hatching eggs available next spring! The SFH will be in the coop Dale built this year so I can put another breed in this coop. I'm thinking a blue egg layer. I'd love to get some Cream Legbars! However, I may have to settle for some Ameraucanas. I plan on getting a Penedesenca rooster to put in with the layer flock as well. It will be easy to pick out the eggs from the two Pene. hens in there and hatch those out too.

So keep your fingers crossed for a great hatch and I'll update in a few days on how things turn out!

More progress on the new chicken coop

It's been quite some time since I did an update on the chicken coop construction. Well, things are looking great! All 4 windows are in. The siding got two coats of paint. The trim is almost all up and painted and it's been moved into the final position now that the concrete has cured.

You are looking at the east facing side with the two sliding windows and the chicken pop door. Our DIY rain barrel is just to the right of the coop catching water from our down spout. This is the side of the coop that the 10 x 10 run will be attached to.

This is the south facing wall. Still need to build a door. The inside has one coat of primer so far, with one more to go before the final coat of white.

I'm still waiting on getting my Swedish Flower Hen chicks. It will  be a couple of weeks so there's lots of time to finish up work on the new coop.

Weekend progress

Last weekend we had perfect weather! Which means we were outside working on the chicken coop.
It started out with moving the chicken coop out of the pole building so the roof work could start.

Then next step was putting up the rafters.

Of course Buffy had to come around to check out the progress too!

I think she approved!

After the rafters were up then the OSB, tar paper and drip edge went on. The rest of the siding was next. It's really looking nice now!

On Sunday the windows went in along with some blocking work on the interior.

You can see the two windows on the east side and the chicken pop door. The cutout in the peak will have a vent in it. Eventually it will all be painted to match the pole building and the other chicken coop too. That will be my big job.

This week the concrete guys have been out and finished getting ready to pour the slab in front of the shop and along the east side where the coop will eventually sit.If the weather holds out they should be here to pour today!! The weekend will have us working on shingles and hopefully more interior work. We will need to wire everything then insulate before putting up the interior walls.

Source: backyardchickens.com via Casie on Pinterest

I hope to have a feeder built into the wall for this coop. An idea I got from the forums on Backyardchickens. It will be nice to not have the feeder hanging in the middle of the coop taking up floor space and I will be able to fill it from the storage side of the coop and not have to go into the chicken's side!

The latest word on my order for chicks is three more weeks. I'm waiting for some Swedish Flower Hens! They are still pretty rare and hard to get. The people I'm getting them from only had 4 hens and are hatching all the eggs they get but still can't keep up with the orders. All the Swedish Flower Hens in the US have come from Green Fire Farms. They were first imported to the US in June, 2010. They are a very colorful breed that's extremely winter hardy! I can't wait to get them!!!