I’m Back…Plus A Lot More Animals!

Man, what a year it has been. I shouldn’t have ever taken the year off from blogging because it is such a therapeutic, fun thing. However, I did and there is no looking back.

However…I’m back. In the words of my good friend Laveda…Shady’s back…back again. IYKYK. 

And this girl came with so many more animals! The Heishman Hen Farm expanded ya’ll. By leaps and bounds. We now have hit over 50 chickens…such a far cry from the ‘just Chick Norris and a few friends’ in 2020. The Duck Nugget trio are still going strong. And we now have our five geese…The Geesey Gang- Payson, Aspen, Memphis, Omaha, and Laramie. We on love our theme names! All ducks will be lunar names and all geese will be city names. 

We added two White Chinese Goslings to our farm in late March 2024 (thanks Mamma for the Bucheits gift card for my 40th, I walked in for duck feed and fell in love with my two little brats and wasn’t leaving without them) and loved the gosling life so much we added three more goslings in early May 2024. This time we added Toulouse goslings. What started out as…they will be just our farm watchdogs turned into my tribe of sweet, loving, stinky yard puppies. They follow me everywhere, want to be wherever we are, are the loudest animals we own, always have an eye on the sky, love to cuddle on the blanket with me in the yard, and have been the best additions to our farm. We built an entire ‘Waterfowl Village’ off of our chicken runs with their own shed, large run, pools, and even a deck for their pools. My hubby, awesome BIL Les, and sweet niece Krista even built a rain water system to fill their pools to save me money. 

We added our Covid Flock (dubbed that because I got them right after having COVID) in February of 2024 and then added 4 Zombie (new fad breed I just had to have) chicks from the swap meet in May of 2024. Our Covid babies grew strong and fast. Unfortunately, our Zombies didn’t. After fighting a horrible outbreak of Coccidiosis in their brooder, staying up almost 48 hours to nurse one girl back to health, and having to trash all things chick and start again…we made it through summer, fall, and winter with most of our chickens. With our 4 zombie hens- the one time I want a rooster in a pack of straight run I get all hens- laying everyday throughout the winter. And a certain someone with the initials LH fell in love with our ‘Walking Dead’ chicks- Michonne, Judith, Maggie, and Carol. And he was just as disappointed as I was that Carol was not a Darryl. 

We did lose one of our original Chick Pack Lacey the Silver Laced Wyandotte in the summer and then two of our girls in the early winter- Charley the Cinnamon Queen and my girl Frankie the Speckled Sussex. Plus our duck Stella had a long winter battling some internal issues that included a lot of isolation (in MY bathtub), Epsom salt baths, time spent at the vet, and waterbelly draining (more on that to come). But we made it through! Our biggest win of the winter was Stella Rae making a solid comeback. Even laying every couple of days again. 

To say it was the longest late summer, fall, and winter I had is an understatement. I went quiet because I was dealing with mental health issues. My babies never suffered or had a lack of care because they were and are my number one reason for living. However, I did lose human friends. I lost time. I lost a lot…I lost myself for a while.  I finally woke up one day and said I was sick of feeling down. My animals and I deserved a much better life than what I felt like I was giving us. So I did a massive pivot in my life and quit my mentally/personally stressful job and went back to what I know and love. And I’ve never looked back. I now have so much more time with my animals. And more time for myself. But that’s all I’ll say on that…for now. 

The chick itch started to hit me in early February this year. I called and visited numerous farm stores looking for chicks until we finally found some. The horrible cold snaps were hard on hatcheries shipping chicks out to stores this year and then the spike in egg prices had new buyers gobbling up chicks when they did get delivered. 

My amazing hubby helped me build a great new chick brooder we have now used a ‘couple’ times this year. I went into Chick Days saying we are only going to get 15 chicks tops. That was the number in my head that would fit comfortably in the Barn Coop as adults. But life happens and we then we lost two of our eldest chickens- Ellis Grey our rescue and RockChick our Barred Rock from the original Chick Pack. 

After losing our girls, Chick Days may have hit me hard. We added several Easter Eggers (our neighbor bestie/best egg buyer requested green or blue egg layers), a couple Black Sex Link, a Buff Orpington, and a so called Cinnamon Queen in our first batch of chicks. Some named by my mini me Presley Jo…she was very creative…and some by me- Fern, Olive, Sage, Hazel Grace (all our green egg layers), Blackberry, Blueberry, Buttercup, and Cinnamon. Then they got bigger and chicks are just so addicting. My favorite scent is a weird one- it’s new chicks. They smell like wood chips and well baby chicks. So we bought Bielefelders, Golden Laced Wyandottes, and what Bomgaars called ‘colored egg layers’ which have grown to be what our best guess are mutts. One is definitely an Easter Egger- our little animal loving buddy Maddie called Jersey and two grey chickens- Glenda and Elephaba. Along with Spirit, Jillian, Sophie (our tiny dancer after my beautiful cousin), Paige and Missy (Young Sheldon names), and of course I had to get in a Taylor after the singer who got me through my darkest days. She will go great with our Kelce and Swiftie my granddaughter Aubree named last year.

But wait! As soon as we got those 9 chicks moved to a bigger brooder…we went to a TSC in Boonville and saw some cute random ‘rare breed’ chicks and my husband said…well we don’t have those breeds and the brooder is empty. So in came Whiskey the Sapphire Splash, Cecilia Ann the Sicilian Buttercup, and Lilian and Julienetta (the 8 year old granddaughter Morgan named those) the ‘Rainbows’. 

So to say this farm has expanded…is an understatement. To say this life is what I’m made for is also an understatement. I used to hate getting up early. I hated my ‘me’ time being disrupted. However, now I live for it. Now my life revolves around taking care of this farm of 50+ animals (including our Gideon Mac the inside rescue cat, Moses Dozer the Shih Tzu, and Brody Bear the Yorkiepoo). 

I’m so excited to finally feel back to me and get back to blogging about what I do best- owning and writing about my babies and helping people learn about poultry and now waterfowl. Doing it on a budget. And being able to care for all of them with what you have at home. Along with some book reviews thrown in there! 

-JJ