More Chicks & A Chicken Meeting

Gerick got a white Silkie that was sent as an extra in a shipment of chicks. Then he picked up a Golden Spangled Hamburg– which have a very strange coloration (deep red-bronze with big black polka-dots all lined up).

Here’s the Hamburg chick as it looks now:

Really interesting coloring!

And what it’ll look like as an adult hen, like it has black dots glued to its feathers:

In addition, we met with Kalden & Natasha to discuss chicken-related matters to keep one another updated. They’ve been taking 80% or more of the eggs pretty regularly, and we haven’t said anything for awhile, but we need to. We’re thinking of going every other week for egg-gathering or something to maybe make that more fair. We can also split coops and yards if they want to. We don’t want to ruin the fun of what we’re doing now, but we also don’t like not getting our fair share of the eggs when we’ve put so much more work an money into than our neighbors. We’re not weird about that sort of thing– but things are getting a little out of hand on that score.

Beyond that, we don’t want to keep bringing in hens without consulting them, and if they feel its getting to be too much, we wanted to figure out how to be more fair with THEM. Again, we can split up coops and just feel our own groups. If they’re cool with paying for half feed, then that’s fine, too. More chicks will up the price of feed– especially the Jersey Black Giant, which is a prolific layer, but will eat a LOT. Finally, Gerick announced his plan to get an “Egg Handler’s License” so he can sell to a couple of local stores near-by or at work or even at a kiosk at a farmer’s market. He’s hoping selling extra eggs will help offset more of the feed price. (The license only costs $25 a year.)

They’re going to think things over as far as how they want to proceed. They didn’t seem taken aback or offended or anything, thankfully. So we’ll let them discuss it and come back to us as to what they’re thinking and what THEY want (besides most of the eggs. Since we’re getting more hens, they shouldn’t lose eggs even if they only get closer to 50% of them in the future.)

I’m really proud of Gerick, since he was really diplomatic. He brought up our concerns, potential solutions, and future plans, and gave them a lot of options so they didn’t feel trapped or insulted or anything. I just let him speak because he was right on the mark and very fair and things went over well. That type of situation can quickly NOT go well if you don’t do it right and if all parties are determined to make it work, but our neighbors are very reasonable people. Yeah, they kind of took over the egg thing– but partly that’s because for a while I wasn’t well enough to gather eggs every day– what with my injuries last year. By the time I was better, suddenly there was this new precedent in place and Gerick and I were grateful they took over (so we’re not sore over them taking so many to begin with) but I’ve been ambulatory for a while now and they haven’t gone back to sharing as much again, so we have to say something.

Hopefully, things work out and we continue to have a good working relationship.