Chickens

I finally found an ad on Craigslist with chickens for sale, pullets that have just started laying or will soon start.  The price was pretty steep, and it was sixty miles away.  But what else were we doing on a drizzly day?  

  I forgot to take my camera along, but here the ladies are at their new home.  They will not save me any money: 

gasoline to get to Belton:                   $20   (that's a guess, of course)
50 pounds of laying mash                  $15
2 chickens                                            $20

That's fifty-five bucks right up front, and I will be buying more laying mash.  If they each lay five eggs a week for a year, That is 520 eggs, a little over 43 dozen eggs.  I buy my eggs at Aldi for less than a dollar a dozen.  
So yeah.  Let's call it a hobby.  
I already caught Iris trying to dig under their pen, too.  I'll have to watch her like a hawk.  She was firmly scolded at length, and kicked once, but who knows what a dog will do next?  Why is nothing ever easy?  
My cousin Betty asked me what about coyotes digging under; I told her we've never had coyotes up this close to the house, that opossums have been our worst chicken problem.  I didn't stop to think about my dog.  This may not end well.  
The Craigslist ad was interesting, because the heading was "Animals for sale".  You can click HERE to read it, as long as it's still posted.  Cliff and I thought it seemed like a peculiar sort of farm, what with all the concrete and chain link fence.  As it turns out, it was an unusual place, sort of a kiddy farm.  You can look at their website HERE. 
He said that every spring they order a rooster and a hen of every breed the hatchery sells.  I'm pretty sure the red hen will be a good layer, but I don't know what kind the other one is.  I wanted a barred rock, but that isn't what she is.