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Raising Chickens: Tips to Raising Chickens

Raising Chickens: Tips to Raising Chickens


  • Tag Archives poultry
  • The New Hampshire Breed of chicken

    The New Hampshire Breed of chicken is a good Heritage breed of Chicken and is a very good dual purpose chicken, It is most often selected more for meat production than egg production although they do lay a good number of large light to medium brown eggs in a year.

    New Hampshire chickens are a relatively new breed, having been admitted to the Standard in 1935. To some of us that seem like a long time ago but in the heritage poultry world it is considered a newer breed. The New Hampshire Chicken breed is very famous for it’s rapid growth, fast feathering, early maturity and vigor, unlike the Rhode Island Red chicken from which it was originated from.

    Some more of the Characteristics New Hampshire are that they possess a deep, broad body, grow feathers very rapidly, are prone to go broody and make excellent mothers.

    The color of the New Hampshire is a medium to light red and often fades in the sunshine. The comb is single and medium to large in size.  At times you will find that the hens comb will often lops over a just a bit.

    New Hampshire chickens are competitive and somewhat aggressive when it comes to the pecking order in your flock. So no worries about them competing when introduced to a new flock.

    With the New Hampshire Heritage Breed of chickens you can’t go wrong.  Add a few of these to your flock and you will be more than please.

    You can find out more about the New Hampshire Chicken breed by going to Heritage Poultry Breeders Association of America where they specialize in poultry breeders of Rare and Heritage Breeds of Poultry

    Here you will learn about the Amazing German line of the New Hampshire Breed


  • Raising Ameraucana Chickens, Chickens That Lay Green And Blue Eggs

    The Ameraucana chicken come in both a large and a small bantam variety. Their are eight colors are officially recognized for poultry shows by the American Poultry Association: Black, Blue, Blue Wheaten, Brown Red, Buff, Silver, Wheaten and White. There are currently several project colors of the Ameraucana chickens being developed, including the beautiful Lavender Ameraucanas. The Lavender Ameraucana is a beautiful pigeon grey color. I hope to be raising them in the spring of 2012.

    I have put together a short video showing the colors of some of the Ameraucanas I currently have at the Backyard Chicken Coop.

    Many people will mistake the Ameraucanas with the Araucana breed as they are similar chickens because both breeds lay eggs with egg shells that are colored in various shades of blue or light green, have pea combs, and should have the red earlobes, but they have many differences and are completely different breeds. Ameraucana traits include full tails, muffs, beards, and slate or black legs depending on the variety. According to the American Poultry Association, the Araucana breed must be rumpless (meaning no tail) and have ear tufts.

    A big mis-conception about the blue eggs that come from the Ameraucanas and Araucanas, is that they are lower in cholesterol than white and brown eggs?

    Many people have asked this question due to some of the hatcheries claiming that these eggs were reported to be lower in cholesterol and higher in nutritional value than other chicken eggs. This is not the case at all. Basically the only different in the color of eggs is the shell color itself.

    Try some Ameraucana chickens in your flock. You can’t go wrong. A flock of Ameraucans with the blue eggs, Anconas with white eggs, speckled Sussex with light brown eggs, and the Marans breeds with the very dark brown chocolate eggs will give you an egg basket that even Martha Stewart would be proud of.


  • Backyard Chicken Coop Chickens

    Chicken Tender with the Backyard Chicken Coop News

    Chicken Tender with the Backyard Chicken Coop News

    Hey Chicken Tender here and I thought I would share a few pictures of some of my friends from the Backyard Chicken Coop.

    The pictures below are just some of the other chickens that Jeff has.  He had just let them out of the coop to enjoy the evening scratching for some grain that he just scattered out on the ground.  This is my favorite part of the day… Out of the Chicken Coop where I feel free to strut my feathers.

    The hot speckled chick in the lower middle of the picture all by her self  is Tilly.  Tilly is a 4 year old Speckled Sussex that I have been crowing for ever since I first set my eyes on her.  What a chick!

    I have to keep my eye on the big black fellow in the bottom left picture… that’s Big Black.  he is a Jersey Giant crossed with an Ameraucana chicken, which is called an easter egg chicken that lays shades of blue, green, and pink eggs.  He takes after his Pa and just kept on a growing.  The Standard weights of a Jersey Black Giant at maturity are males-13 lbs. and hens-10 lbs, but they grow kind of slow.  The hens do lay nice big brown eggs though, and are good looking chicks.

    The other guy on the right of Tilly is Wyant.  He is a  Silver Laced Wyandotte…Wyant and I get a long much better. Wyandottes are a nice docile chicken and the hens are a very good layer of brown eggs.

    Now the big fellow down below they call him Jake.  He isn’t really part of the Chicken flock as you really should not raise Chickens and Turkeys in the same coop because of diseases.  Jake is a Narragansett Turkey.  He thinks he is pretty good looking because he is always strutting around, Gobbling, and drumming his wings for his mate.  The pattern of the Narragansett turkey is similar to the Bronze, but bronze is replaced with steel gray and the brown in the tail is a lighter tan. The gray has a slightly golden or brown tint. . . . My preference for the Narragansett is based mostly on a calm disposition and size.  Calm and not to big :)

    The nice looking building right next to Jake is his coop.  My chicken coop is just like it only we have a little bigger chicken run attached to our 8 X 10 shed that Jeff built in just a day.  We enjoy the wild grapevines growing over the top of the building as it gives us nice shade during the hot summer days.  Jeff comes out and trims them back every year so they do not grow to wild and spoil the view of looking at the nice variety of day lillies that he planted just outside the coops.

    Well thanks for stopping by the Backyard Chicken Coop.  I will be sharing some more great tips on how you can get the most enjoyment out of raising chickens!

    Backyard Chicken Coop Chickens

    Backyard Chicken Coop Chickens

     

    Narragansett Turkeys The Backyard Chicken Coop

    Narragansett Turkeys The Backyard Chicken Coop



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