Jodie Otte, Baltimore Maryland Child and Baby Photographer

I thought I would share something fun this morning — If you know me, you know that I acquired chickens for the first time as chicks around Easter time.  I thought it would be a great experience for my children, and who can resist the idea of fresh eggs?    I have to warn, if you ever get chickens, they are very addicting.  The idea was get a couple chicks (click here to see original chicks).  We bought all female but when I went to check out online, it said, “click here if you want a free chick”… why not?  I didn’t think about it until they were on their way - of COURSE that would be a rooster, right?  Sure enough it was… but then we got another surprise - that in a minute.

We were going to throw together a coop using a dog kennel, but then I found a great Amish structure place in Shrewsbury, PA, so I bought a premade coop to match our house of course ;)  Dean and I have spent many hours working on the chicken run, and here it is thus far….

It’s an ugly foggy day, but you get the idea.  We planted ornamental sunflowers around the front and concord grape vines in the back (on the right in this picture) to hopefully climb up the side of the run and offer some more protection/shade eventually.  We’ve fox proofed, racoon proofed, and hawk proofed this coop and run.  We’ve got a little “zen” pond going up near it as well… we’re trying to complete our projects before it gets too hot out…

Mind if I share a little accomplishment of my own?  I made this window.  The only thing I was disappointed about this coop was that the cross ventilation wasn’t very good.  I found trim moulding that was similar, and went to work constructing a pull-open window to match the coop… I think it turned out pretty nice myself

 
At last - the chickens.  They still have more growing to do, but look how big they have gotten!  Here they are waiting for me to open the door to the run….

A Rhode Island Red pullet coming out of the coop….

And here is our little surprise — we ended up with TWO roosters in that batch.  This buff cochin is definitely a roo.  When we pick him up and put him back down - he crows like he’s so disgusted with us - how dare we pick him up like a common chicken…

From left to right - americauna (she will have blue eggs), barred rock, americauna, Rhode Island red, Rhode Island red… all girls…

 
And this is Dean’s favorite - this was our “bonus chick”.  It’s an Americauna.  Dean calls him “Bad @ss” - I have to agree.

Can you believe in a week, we have seven more chickens coming?  Two blue cochins, two silkies, and three polish - they are “ornamental” chickens - so they are more for fun than anything else! :D  So far, so good, though - I’ve learned that chickens don’t have to be a really messy deal… and definitely not a lot of upkeep once you get them set up.

But I tell ya - chickens are VERY difficult to photograph - they move too quickly. Try it with a wide aperture, and wow…