First Post- A little about me!

I am starting this blog to document raising chickens in my NY home along with my friend. We are so excited to get started! Some people choose to buy their chickens as chicks, but we have decided to try to raise them from eggs. I am nervous they will not hatch but we will be very excited if they do. I plan to do an update every few days for the first year of the chickens lives, even if it is a boring update. I hope this is an amazing learning experience for us and anyone who reads! Feel free to comment with any advice and suggestions for us!

We live in NY so we needed to take into account the type of chicken that we could keep. I have been told by my chicken expert friend( Thanks Kelly) that the best breeds that would suit us are-

Buff Orpingtons
Black Australorps
Barred Rocks
Ameracanas or Arucanas
Rhode Island Reds

We decided on Buff Orpingtons and Barred Rocks after some research

Here are Buff Orpingtons as Baby chicks...SO CUTE!

and then as Adults I think they are beautiful!

Here are the Barred Rocks as babies!! so cute!!

and as adults, I love the coloring

My friend believes its a bad idea to name the Chicks before they are born because it will jinx us but here are some names I like :)

Charlotte

Scarlet

Betsy

Gwendolyn

So far the supplies we have bought are-

Hova Bator Preset Genesis 1588 Incubator

I have done a ton of research on it and I think this is our best chance at getting our eggs to hatch. It also has a automatic egg turner to reduce us handling the eggs.

I also bought a candling kit so we can check the progress of the chicks!

Hopefully we will receive the chicks by friday and I will do another update then, I am praying they make it to us safe!!

Jess


P.S My friend has two adorable children who are also so excited for the chicks to be born. One of the reason my friend wanted to do this was for the amazing experience Hannah and Ben are going to take away from it. I am sure they are going to be VERY involved in this process and will LOVE it!!
HI HANNAH!! I hope you love doing this, start thinking of names for our chickens!