Our Big Family and Little Homestead: The Birth Fowlplayas

I can't quite pinpoint when I decided I wanted chickens. I can tell you when I got them. It was my anniversary 2014. I had been telling Daniel how much I wanted to raise them. We went to Houma, LA for an anniversary lunch. This is the town where our feed store is located. We went there after lunch just for fun, or so I thought. He then surprised me by telling me to go pick out some chickens!

Few of the first chicks

I carefully chose 5 Barred Plymouth Rock babies. Five little mostly black puffs of feathers. The cutest little things I had ever seen, other than my babies. I purchased some feed, a waterer, and a feeder. They lived in a storage tote for weeks in my garage. I was in the middle of moving from one house to another. We decided to move into one of our rentals since our current home was being sold. We could keep chickens in the town where the rental was. This made me so happy. Daniel found a chicken tractor on the side of the road!! The family that put it there used it as a rabbit house and the man even helped bring it down the street for us. It was a blessing. We still had a few weeks before we moved in, so the babies grew up some in the garage.

The free chicken house
check out that post, I
wanted more space way back then

Once we made the move, the 5 BR babies made the move too. We put them in their new home and they loved it. But, one morning while drinking coffee with Daniel before work, I heard chirping from front door. I ran and found four of my babies on my porch, visibly upset. Daniel ran to the backyard to find the coop (tractor) open! He saw a raccoon take off into the woods with one of my babies. I was so upset. He had climbed on the tractor and knock off one of the doors. I took it as a learning moment. We screwed the roof doors down and tried again. He never got another one.

The Post office delivery!

After a few months at the new house, and a few more months with chickens, I was ready for more! But I had decided that I wanted an eclectic mix of chickens. I wanted to see different colors of chickens roaming my yard and different colors of eggs. Eggs can be white, cream, brown, dark brown, blue, and green. The can by many shades of those colors and even have spots. So this time I went to the internet. I ordered 10 "Brown egg layer Mix" chicks from mypetchicken.com. This meant the morning of shipping, they would grab 10 random babies and send them to me. I figured this would be fun for us. We would get to try to figure out which breeds we got!

We waited for the post office to call. Once they did, we went to pick them up. I heard them chirping the moment I walked in. The other people in the post office were staring and wondering what in the world I was doing. The postmaster was very sweet. I climbed in the truck and we peeked. So cute! 10 perfect little babies. I saw brown, black, and yellow puffs. The kids were so excited to see what these babies would become.

Alicia's Birthday Bantam Chicks

On Alicia's 11th birthday, she wanted something that most her age probably would never have asked for--more chickens--! After visiting Daniel's pawpaw in the hospital, we went to TSC. There we found some bantam chicks. We bought 5 lil tiny babies and surprised her that evening. She was so happy. Only 4 survived the night, but those 4 are now 20 weeks old and will start laying soon.

One day, not long after new babies came home, we had a family BBQ. The cousins brought their kids to our makeshift chicken farm. They loved seeing and holding the chicks. We spent hours just being together and talking about the future. While visiting, Daniel's cousins Amber and Hannah helped me to come up with a name for our little farm. Fowlplayas Poultry Farm was born. It is a catchy name and looks good on a shirt! Our Journey had begun. As of July 2015, we have 35 chickens. I want to grow this in Tennessee to 3500! There will be more posts about our little farm to come.

https://www.facebook.com/Fowlplayas