Meet the Squawk Flock

My new baby chickies riding on their Gator

I feel guilty for just now posting about my beautiful girls, my chickens. They are the inspiration behind this blog and are such a huge part of my life. Up until three years ago, I thought farmers had to have tons of acreage, hundreds of animals, and sales from their harvests and livestock. My husband, Mike, and I became farmers overnight when we bought an old apple orchard with 20 apple trees, two caged vegetable gardens, a huge grapevine, and a mini chicken coup with four chickens. It's amazing how much food we produce with our ten acre piece of land, and we don't even utilize all the space or land yet. We do a lot of canning every year and give away a ton of food to family and friends, which makes my heart happy. Maybe someday we'll have a stand at the Farmer's Market in town, but for right now Mike and I are just enjoying feeding everyone we know.

SharkBite, Lays blue eggs

I started my first flock with four chickens initially because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn't know if I would enjoy taking care of outside animals, all the animals I've ever had were inside, house pets. Getting up early every morning and going out into every type of weather to care for chickens was something new for me. Four birds were a good starting flock for my family and me, and we learned so much from those little sweetie pies. Two of the four are still alive today, SharkBite and Speedy (named by my kiddos). The other two chickens, named Winner Winner Chicken Dinner (poor name choice it turns out) and Peggy Sue, were eaten by a raccoon four months after I had them. I'm still in mourning, they were very special birds.

Speedy, Caught laying one of her orange eggs

Now I'm up to 16 chickens and have tripled the size of my coop and run. The bond created between the chickens and me has become pretty strong. Every time I drive my car up the driveway, they fly from all around the yard racing to get to to me first. When I pull weeds out of my flower gardens, they surround my legs pecking at the weeds I throw at them. As I collect vegetables from the garden, they stare at me through the chain link fence just hoping I'll throw them a cherry tomato or two. Maybe they love me just for their treats, but having my sweet fluffy butts follow me everywhere just makes me want to be outside with them all the time.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Lay olive green eggs

I don't think a lot of people know how awesome chickens are. They have the ability to withstand all different types of weather, have strong survival instincts to hide from predators (because absolutely everything eats chickens, including other chickens), they rid my yard of bugs and bug larvae (I hardly ever have to use bug spray on my kids), they use their claws to constantly aerate the soil, they fertilize my lawn, and they have the ability to lay an egg EVERY SINGLE DAY of their adult life until they get eaten. Having given birth naturally to each of my three babies, I would not enjoy going through the birthing process on a daily basis! They truly are amazing creatures and are extremely important to my family since they are a constant source of food.

Sweet Pea and Bubble Gum, Lay white eggs

Fluffy Cheeks, Lays olive green eggs

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk and looking at my little beauties,

Kelly