I'd been "chatting" with a lady in a Yahoo! Group and on the phone about checking out the chickens she had for sale and we decided to meet up at the local flea market this past Saturday morning. I'd done my homework and, based on the size of our current chicken coop, I figured we could easily add half a dozen or so hens to the flock without overcrowding being an issue. Bryan seemed okay with this idea but chose to stay at home to "work on the fence" while I went shopping for some chickens at 7 a.m. on a Saturday.
When I met up with this new chicken lady (well, she's not really a chicken lady since she's trying to "get out of chickens" and narrow the focus of her farm but aneeywayyy...), I looked around at the chickens she had out on display but didn't see any that fit the description of the ones we'd talked about. See, when we were talking, I wasn't thinking chicks. Guess I should have but I didn't. No matter though, once I saw the chicks, which were hiding out in a brooder box in the back seat of her truck (to stay warm), I became a chick momma. I brought home 18 Rhode Island Red chicks and 3 cross-breeds of some sort.
So now our garage (which I just started parking in this week - finally!) smells like chickens (or rather like chicken pee and poop) because these little ones are 2 weeks old, still have to be under a heat lamp and separated from the older flock. Over the next month or so, we'll be watching them to see signs of which are roosters and which are hens (though I'm convinced one of the cross-breeds is definitely a rooster (read: stubborn rooster)). Of course, this means we're going to need at least one other coop - 'cause you can't have two roosters together - or I suppose you can but it won't be pretty.
I'm pretty sure I recall Bryan's initial response being something along the lines of "what were you thinking???" I'll tell you what I was thinking: I had to drag my "not-a-morning-person" butt out of bed, drive in the dreary cold with no coat because I forgot (not his fault, but still), go by myself to a place I'd never been before hunting for a lady I'd never seen before and, well, look ...
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Need I say more?
I'm supposed to be going this weekend to Oklahoma to pick up another goat (a Nigerian Dwarf buck, so we can breed him with Milky and Prada), but I think Bryan's having second thoughts about me going alone. He mumbled something about me coming home with a truck load of goats and suggested Bryanna go with me. That's fine, she and I can make a mother-daughter trip out of it ... 'course it could just mean double (or triple or quadruple) trouble. Hmm, I wonder if we'll get a discount on multiple goats...