Christmas Flock Update

(yes, all puns are intended)

It’s Christmas time and here at the end of 2024, we wanted to give an update from the local yolkels as to where we stand with our different layer flocks. We currently have three laying flocks, with a fourth flock waiting in the wings to come online sometime in March/April of 2025. Right now the first three chicken tractors are in the over-winter area with the cows and get to range with and general clean up after the cows.

Not quite the oldest flock we have, at just under a year, is our yellow flock. They are currently in a used trailer we purchased online and built into a chicken tractor (our 3rd tractor). This guy on the right is the rooster for the yellow flock. He is an Easter Egger rooster, while the flock itself consists of many different breeds. There are about 15 total chickens in this flock.

Our purple flock is the next youngest after the yellows. Their rooster is a Barred Rock and the flock is also of mixed variety. They have been moved into our oldest chicken tractor (ol’ number one). This flock also has about 15 chickens total.

Flock number three is our green flock. What can I say about flock number three? They are our rescue chickens. The farm we purchased them from obtains them from a commercial egg producer when they are about a year old. This flock is all Cinnamon Queens with a Rhode Island Red rooster. When we first got these chickens, they acted like they had never seen real dirt before, and seemed very placid, almost demoralized. However, after a few weeks, they have come out of their shells and are very mobile around the southern pasture and other areas of the homestead.

Finally, our newest flock which we will designate with red leg tags (when their legs are big enough) is a mixed group of 20 pullets. We can already tell (and hear) that there is at least one rooster in the batch. Right now they are inside the homestead yard in our newest trailer-converted-to-chicken-tractor, uh, chicken tractor. This is the group that we look to start laying in the March/April time frame.