Lancelot Acres

Chicks are in our future...

Well, we had planned on getting Jumbo Cornish Cross chicks to raise this summer, but I think we are going to try a standard large breed instead.  We'll have to keep them longer to get them up to size, but they will be so much easier to raise, and I think it will be cheaper too, but we'll have to see.

We usually raise the meat birds in a chicken tractor, and we've had great luck with that, but it's a lot of work moving the tractor each day, keeping lights on for maximum growth, feeding and watering twice per day, etc.  If we get standard large breeds, we'll just raise them in the coop and let them free range when we are home (we are almost always home).  They'll still need fed and watered of course, but they'll go in the coop and be locked in at night, rather than living in the chicken tractor 24/7.

I hope to place an order in the next week and I hope to get the chicks in the next couple weeks to a month.  We need to do an overhaul on our chicken coop though, so we'll have to get busy on that. 

Lilli has gone through the catalog and circled about 10 different breeds of chickens that she would like to keep, so I'll order those when I order the 'meat' chickens.  Her breeds will be our 'pets' and egg layers.  I love having chickens and I have really missed having them this last winter.  They are so much fun to watch out in the yard, they have such personality!

We still hope to buy 3 or 4 older hens as soon as we can, as we would like to have our own eggs as soon as possible.  We've been keeping our eyes open for hens and hope to attend an auction soon so we can purchase a few.

I would LOVE to have guineas again too.  The hatchery has a minimum order of 30 guineas though, and that's too many, LOL.  I am sure I could sell some at auction though, so we'll have to see.  I could just keep the ones I like and I do like that idea.  I've seen some of the males get aggressive toward roosters when they get older, so we don't want those around.  I like to keep them all in the same coop so they need to get along well with the chickens.

That's our chicken news.  I'm getting excited about them :)

Daily Chatter, template trouble, and FIL update

I would like to add tickers and links to my blog, but I'm not sure how?  Can anybody give a tip on that?  I tried adding it to the template but it never showed up on the blog...any ideas?

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Today was a nice 'stay-at-home and be lazy' day.  Lauren and I have colds, so we just played indoors most of the day, but we did walk around the yard for about a half hour or so, the weather was SO nice today.  It was almost 70 degrees!  Too nice not to get out for a few minutes, even with colds.

Lance went to the hospital this morning and then came home and worked on his car this afternoon.  He grilled steaks and I made fried potatoes and sweet corn for supper.  It was really good, and now I'm really looking forward to the warmer weather so we can have that more often.  Yum!

Lilli spent last night at my parent's house and is spending her second night there tonight.  She always has a great time there and staying two nights doesn't happen very often. 

She has a cough, and dad said she had a fever for a short time today, so they are watching that.  I wouldn't be surprised if she's getting this cold that Lauren and I have.  I'm not sure about the fever though.

Lance's dad had his first chemo treatment last night.  He'll have another tonight, and another tomorrow night, and he may get to go home on Monday if they can shrink the tumor on his lungs enough to ease his breathing.  What a blessing that would be.

Hugs, Lisa