Acorn Community

Acorn just purchased 18 pullets of 4 varieties. We have Black Stars, Red Stars, Barred Rocks, and Rhode Island Reds. The Star breeds are Hybrids, and the other two are Heritage breeds. All of them are dual purpose breeds that will lay eggs, and also provide some meat. We purchased our pullets and supplies at Eden Farms, right down the road in Gum Springs. Our particular birds are 14 weeks old and should begin laying in about a month. Once they get going, each bird should provide about 5-7 eggs per week. We eat a lot of eggs here at Acorn, so 90-127 eggs is unlikely to supply our needs. Hopefully in the future we’ll be able to provide for all of our own egg needs.
Fortunately for us, years ago Acorn had chickens and there was already a mobile chicken coup available. It was cleverly built on top of an old car frame in disuse. It had lots of aging problems, but Andy and I have done a rough refurbishment. It’s likely in the future we will build a new stationary coup, and maybe even build a new mobile one using this old car frame. Ideally, we would already have fenced in the area around the coup for the chickens to roam in, but all of the intense snow has prevented us from getting to that stage. As soon as the snow melts enough, we will get the fence up and start letting the chickens out during the day. Well, here are some pictures:

Chickens...

Inside the Coup

Outside the Coup

Andy Feeding the Chickens

A Chicken and I

Chickens Eating

Andy

Oh yeah, this is Andy.  He is our newest provisional member.  Andy has been traveling through the FEC, other communities, and even to China.  He has been the main source of energy in starting up our new chicken system.  Thanks Andy!