- Apr 20, 2019
- 161
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Hello everyone. Welcome. I’m creating this thread to share pictures and stories of the chickens here at Honey Bee Homestead and to share the progression of my breeding program. I will occasionally allow my non-winged creatures to steal the spotlight as well. I like to call my farm a homestead, but technically, it’s a hobby farm as most of the animals here are freeloaders, but we won’t tell them that. I have lots of pictures to share, but first, I want to tell you a little bit about how the farm got to where it is now.
A little bit of history: The farm has been in my family for a long time. It was originally bought by my (step) great-great-grandfather. There used to be a church on the property, and the farm is named after the church that was here. (Honey Bee Homestead is not the real name of the farm.) My parents had a small dairy (under 100 head), but they sold the cattle a couple of years before I was born. Over the years, they had a variety of other farm animals, including draft horses, peafowl, sheep, pigs, and chickens.
Then, I came along: As a child, I was obsessed with animals. One of my favorite animals growing up was tigers, and unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I couldn’t have one as a pet. I loved all the farm animals, too. My Dad would place me on top of our Belgian draft horses, and before long I was begging for riding lessons. I soon got my first horse, Sugar. An OTTB who was as gentle as could be with me. (But not with everyone else.) Sugar passed, and eventually, I got Maggie after my riding instructor offered to sell her to us. Maggie was the horse I first rode when I started riding lessons. She was 15 or 16 years old when we bought her and is now turning 26 on April 15th. When we brought Maggie back to the farm, we knew she needed a friend.
Side story: At that point, our draft horses, Red and Roscoe, were long gone. One had died of old age and was buried in the pasture. About a month later, his brother went up to where he was buried and laid down and died. They were half brothers born a month apart and spent their whole lives together, side by side in the pasture as if they were hooked up to a wagon. I always say one died of old age and another of a broken heart.
Back to the main story: So, we decided to get Maggie a mini donkey. Note: A mini donkey, singular. Well, we ended up with two: Lizzie and Ellie. Maggie immediately took to them, and having had foals in the past, she began treating them as her own. She never judged them for their oddly long ears or bald noses; as far as she knew, it was her duty to ensure they were safe. It wasn’t until more appeared that she began to question where they were all coming from.
Fun fact: Mini donkey math is actually similar to chicken math. Lizzie and Ellie are a very similar color, so they count as one. Lizzie is pregnant and about to give birth any day, so she counts as one, and after the baby is born will still count as one as the baby is so tiny no one will even know it’s there. Penny is Lizzie’s daughter and has a very similar personality, so they can merge into one. Lastly, I have Cash, he can count as one because he is the only boy. So, despite what others say, I have two donkeys; they just have multiple names.
Expanding: The mini donkeys quickly grew into their roles as fierce herd protectors from the two-legged feathered creatures. Over time, more four-legged creatures of different shapes joined the farm. Maggie never took to the ones with horns that scream for food every time they see me, she said those were too smelly for her. Thankfully, they have their own pasture. It took her a while to get used to the ones with long necks that spit and made a weird humming noise, but now she lets them eat the grass in her pasture without any issues.
Where do chickens come into this?: Now, you’re probably thinking, “Isn’t this supposed to be about chickens?” Well yes, yes it is, but I like to ramble. The two-legged feathered creatures are the chickens and other birds, but my donkeys don’t believe that. According to them, they are carnivorous predators ready to peck them to death at the first chance they get. But I’ll get to the point now. In March of 2017, my Dad brought home six chicks. We had chickens already, but it had been a few years since we had gotten chicks, and most of our ladies were getting pretty old. I raised them up and quickly got the chicken bug. I started to accumulate chickens like they were collectible figurines. I soon discovered mail-order chicks, which is simultaneously the most wonderful and horribly addicting invention of all time. Chicken math completely took over. I started incubating eggs, and at one point, we had over 100 chickens. Nowadays, we have somewhere around 50 hens and 5 roosters. Through the mail, I also added geese, ducks, and quail to the farm.
The breeding program: Some of my earliest memories of our chickens were of me being chased by our RIR roosters. So, when I recently decided to start a breeding program, I thought, “Why not start with the breed that gave me nightmares as a child?” So here I am, a couple of weeks later, with nine exhibition/heritage RIR chicks in the brooder. (Two of which are roosters, I’m hoping they turn out to be friendly lads who don’t give me nightmares…) I started my search a bit late in the year, and all the breeders that I looked into were already sold out of chicks for the season. So, I ended up getting them from Cackle Hatchery. I’m not sure what the “quality” of these chicks will be, but the goal is to use them in my breeding program. There are also some poultry shows near me this summer, and I hope to find some more there, along with hatching out some eggs(if I can find any) and getting on breeder's waiting lists for next year. Along with my RIRs, I also got 12 mystery chicks, which I now believe are Light Brown Leghorns and Old English Game.
Why Rhode Island Reds?: The more I researched the breed, the more I realized many of the traits I disliked about my hatchery stock were pretty uncommon in well-bred traditional strains. I quickly fell in love with their deep mahogany red feathers. I like how hardy they are and that they’re a dual-purpose breed. Despite not liking the roosters, I always liked our RIR hens as a child.
I still have a ton to learn, but I’m super excited to start working on this wonderful and sometimes nightmare-inducing breed! At least now I know how to make good chicken soup…
Warning: Besides pictures of fluffy chicken butts, you may also be subjected to images of spitting alpacas, baby donkeys that are totally not cute, and angry mares. If I decide to embarrass myself, I will share how my Border Collie outsmarts me. I may choose to share the story about how my goat almost died trying to steal my rabbit's food and of how I babied her thinking she wouldn’t get better, but really she was just lazy. You may also experience confusion trying to figure out which quail is using the brain cell today. I also have a rabbit named Goose and a goose named Rabbit, so that can get confusing, too. Proceed with caution.
Now, if you’ve read this far, you probably want to see pictures of them. So here they are…
My girl Maggie, aka Maggot when she is bad, photobombed by a donkey's ear.
Reno, aka Green Bean, showing off his glorious mane.
The alpacas, aka pockys (think pocky sticks), and a rather unflatering photo of Willow
Penny (aka Pen-Pen), Ellie (aka Ellie-Belly), and Lizzie, the pregnant one (aka Cheese-Whiz)
The goats
Random chicken pictures
One of my new RIR chicks
Annie, the dog that's too smart for her own good.
This isn’t all of them, but this post is already a mile long, and it doesn’t need to be two, so we’re going to stop here. More coming soon! And if you got this far, thanks for reading!
A little bit of history: The farm has been in my family for a long time. It was originally bought by my (step) great-great-grandfather. There used to be a church on the property, and the farm is named after the church that was here. (Honey Bee Homestead is not the real name of the farm.) My parents had a small dairy (under 100 head), but they sold the cattle a couple of years before I was born. Over the years, they had a variety of other farm animals, including draft horses, peafowl, sheep, pigs, and chickens.
Then, I came along: As a child, I was obsessed with animals. One of my favorite animals growing up was tigers, and unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I couldn’t have one as a pet. I loved all the farm animals, too. My Dad would place me on top of our Belgian draft horses, and before long I was begging for riding lessons. I soon got my first horse, Sugar. An OTTB who was as gentle as could be with me. (But not with everyone else.) Sugar passed, and eventually, I got Maggie after my riding instructor offered to sell her to us. Maggie was the horse I first rode when I started riding lessons. She was 15 or 16 years old when we bought her and is now turning 26 on April 15th. When we brought Maggie back to the farm, we knew she needed a friend.
Side story: At that point, our draft horses, Red and Roscoe, were long gone. One had died of old age and was buried in the pasture. About a month later, his brother went up to where he was buried and laid down and died. They were half brothers born a month apart and spent their whole lives together, side by side in the pasture as if they were hooked up to a wagon. I always say one died of old age and another of a broken heart.
Back to the main story: So, we decided to get Maggie a mini donkey. Note: A mini donkey, singular. Well, we ended up with two: Lizzie and Ellie. Maggie immediately took to them, and having had foals in the past, she began treating them as her own. She never judged them for their oddly long ears or bald noses; as far as she knew, it was her duty to ensure they were safe. It wasn’t until more appeared that she began to question where they were all coming from.
Fun fact: Mini donkey math is actually similar to chicken math. Lizzie and Ellie are a very similar color, so they count as one. Lizzie is pregnant and about to give birth any day, so she counts as one, and after the baby is born will still count as one as the baby is so tiny no one will even know it’s there. Penny is Lizzie’s daughter and has a very similar personality, so they can merge into one. Lastly, I have Cash, he can count as one because he is the only boy. So, despite what others say, I have two donkeys; they just have multiple names.
Expanding: The mini donkeys quickly grew into their roles as fierce herd protectors from the two-legged feathered creatures. Over time, more four-legged creatures of different shapes joined the farm. Maggie never took to the ones with horns that scream for food every time they see me, she said those were too smelly for her. Thankfully, they have their own pasture. It took her a while to get used to the ones with long necks that spit and made a weird humming noise, but now she lets them eat the grass in her pasture without any issues.
Where do chickens come into this?: Now, you’re probably thinking, “Isn’t this supposed to be about chickens?” Well yes, yes it is, but I like to ramble. The two-legged feathered creatures are the chickens and other birds, but my donkeys don’t believe that. According to them, they are carnivorous predators ready to peck them to death at the first chance they get. But I’ll get to the point now. In March of 2017, my Dad brought home six chicks. We had chickens already, but it had been a few years since we had gotten chicks, and most of our ladies were getting pretty old. I raised them up and quickly got the chicken bug. I started to accumulate chickens like they were collectible figurines. I soon discovered mail-order chicks, which is simultaneously the most wonderful and horribly addicting invention of all time. Chicken math completely took over. I started incubating eggs, and at one point, we had over 100 chickens. Nowadays, we have somewhere around 50 hens and 5 roosters. Through the mail, I also added geese, ducks, and quail to the farm.
The breeding program: Some of my earliest memories of our chickens were of me being chased by our RIR roosters. So, when I recently decided to start a breeding program, I thought, “Why not start with the breed that gave me nightmares as a child?” So here I am, a couple of weeks later, with nine exhibition/heritage RIR chicks in the brooder. (Two of which are roosters, I’m hoping they turn out to be friendly lads who don’t give me nightmares…) I started my search a bit late in the year, and all the breeders that I looked into were already sold out of chicks for the season. So, I ended up getting them from Cackle Hatchery. I’m not sure what the “quality” of these chicks will be, but the goal is to use them in my breeding program. There are also some poultry shows near me this summer, and I hope to find some more there, along with hatching out some eggs(if I can find any) and getting on breeder's waiting lists for next year. Along with my RIRs, I also got 12 mystery chicks, which I now believe are Light Brown Leghorns and Old English Game.
Why Rhode Island Reds?: The more I researched the breed, the more I realized many of the traits I disliked about my hatchery stock were pretty uncommon in well-bred traditional strains. I quickly fell in love with their deep mahogany red feathers. I like how hardy they are and that they’re a dual-purpose breed. Despite not liking the roosters, I always liked our RIR hens as a child.
I still have a ton to learn, but I’m super excited to start working on this wonderful and sometimes nightmare-inducing breed! At least now I know how to make good chicken soup…
Warning: Besides pictures of fluffy chicken butts, you may also be subjected to images of spitting alpacas, baby donkeys that are totally not cute, and angry mares. If I decide to embarrass myself, I will share how my Border Collie outsmarts me. I may choose to share the story about how my goat almost died trying to steal my rabbit's food and of how I babied her thinking she wouldn’t get better, but really she was just lazy. You may also experience confusion trying to figure out which quail is using the brain cell today. I also have a rabbit named Goose and a goose named Rabbit, so that can get confusing, too. Proceed with caution.
Now, if you’ve read this far, you probably want to see pictures of them. So here they are…
My girl Maggie, aka Maggot when she is bad, photobombed by a donkey's ear.
Reno, aka Green Bean, showing off his glorious mane.
The alpacas, aka pockys (think pocky sticks), and a rather unflatering photo of Willow
Penny (aka Pen-Pen), Ellie (aka Ellie-Belly), and Lizzie, the pregnant one (aka Cheese-Whiz)
The goats
Random chicken pictures
One of my new RIR chicks
Annie, the dog that's too smart for her own good.
This isn’t all of them, but this post is already a mile long, and it doesn’t need to be two, so we’re going to stop here. More coming soon! And if you got this far, thanks for reading!
you have a gorgeous homestead! 
