MY FIRST CHICKEN SWAP MEET TODAY AT TSC

HELLO & welcome to Garden Daddy here at the urban farm! Today I attended my first "chicken swap meet" of the West TN. Poultry Club at our local Tractor Supply Co. here in Jackson, TN. It was quite something to see all the different varieties folks brought along with hatching eggs, chicks, etc. Someone even had turkey eggs for hatching. I met the person I was getting my Cuckoo Marens from, the French pullets I had arranged to add to my little brood that lay the chocolate colored eggs. I have a picture of her hens and eggs she was selling and will post that here now for you to see what this Garden Daddy is looking forward to....just look at these eggs laid by the parents of my new chicks:

Aren't these just amazing! The ones on the left are a little lighter than the others and those are like the ones I will have, as my young hens have the feathers on their feet and they tend to lay a little lighter egg than those without the feathers. I chose the feathered footed ones as they are the only Cuckoo Maren recognized by the APA (American Poultry Association) and would be necessary if I were to start going to exibitions, fair entries, etc. But I was able to "peck" the brains of some good, experienced flock owners and get a feel for what is ahead of me. Granted, I may have more birds than I want to deal with down the road but I feel like once I go through and see the different breeds grown up and how they lay, production rates vs. food intake, temperament, and get the egg colors I am looking for, etc. I think I will have no trouble either trading off the ones I do not want and also I got a few extras in case of "casualty", which has NOT happened yet. I also plan to give them a good expanded foraging area that will give more of a "free range" effort and that will add to the better development of their ability to be more self feeding and the quality of their products they give every day. I am going to add some more privacy fencing to the back yard on my property line and then use some temporary fencing on the side-interior under all those pine trees and let then out of their coop & existing run to free range in that thick pine straw bedding. Here are some shots of the chicken swap. The upper photo is more of the eggs laid by the flock my new chicks (Cuckoo Marens) came from today. The other two shots are some of the other cages of birds that were for sale today.

This Garden Daddy will leave you again today with out ongoing city farm affirmation: "URBAN FARMING: ONE EGG AT A TIME!"