I am here and alive! There have been so many things going on this summer that I did not have the time or energy to hop on here and do my thing. But I promise I will be on more now that the kids are in school.

One of the things we have been busy with is all the chicks! I have had 7 hens go broody this summer and of those 7, three have gone broody twice. There are about 25 chicks running around of all kinds of breeds that I will be so excited to have laying next spring. Most are mixed breeds right from my flock.

This is Fancy, she is a Silver Laced Wyandotte with feathered legs. I bought 14 eggs from a friend on Back Yard Chickens. I divided them up between two broody hens Fancy and Kristine who is a Black Cochin. Both of these ladies hatched out their chicks but found out that the chicks all responded to Fancy more than Kristine. After about 2 weeks Kristine gave up and let Fancy take over the care of all 14 babies. Sadly I am down to only 9 of these chicks now, most of them had been taken by some smaller predators while we were gone for a weekend on vacation. The latest one to have passed was my daughter Rylaya's favorite that loved to be held. That chick had tried drinking out of the pig watering tub and seems to have fallen in and not been able to get out.  Out of the 14 I have one Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and the rest are EE's and Olive Eggers.
Now both moms have moved on and begun laying again (Kristine might be going broody again)

For some reason my pictures of Kristine and her chicks would not load, but I have many many pics of Fancy with her chicks.

Are any of my fellow chicken peeps raising chicks through the winter to have them start laying next spring? And what breeds are you raising?