(Copying my response from elsewhere over to here.) Watching the little video clip in Cedar's blog post today (her chickens walking around their pen), and Juniper (Cedar's little sister) was making happy little noises about "Chickens!" LOL! I'm getting chickens again (ordered chicks who will be here later this summer), not for eggs so much as to raise chicks for our own meat supply. I think Juniper will be pleased. So will the little dogs, who will happily kill and eat all of the poultry unless the birds are securely fenced (my little dogs, to be clear, who are excellent hunters of moles and all things rodent, but also anything else smallish that moves).
I've had dogs who were fine with loose poultry; these little Rat Terrier X Schipperke's are not.
I sent for four breeds, three pullets and two cockerels of each (with intention to eat the extra cockerel if both survive): Delaware, White Rock, Speckled Sussex (which I've wanted forever), and Buckeye. They are all among the best meat producers of the dual-purpose breeds. I'll have to buy another incubator because I gave mine to my sister last year, but won't need that until these birds start laying next year.
Initially I'll raise them in my raised brooder house, but then I think I'll separate them into four chicken tractors and do a spiral cross-breeding program, and see what we come up with.
We bought a house on 4 acres in the semi-rural middle part of our Florida Panhandle county. No HOA, zoned for low density housing, farming and pretty much anything else. First thing we got was goats and chickens because the two daughters were 8 and 9 and wanted them. Built a 35' by 35' chicken pen with a cheap wooden coop in the center and the whole thing later divided into halves so that we could rotate the chickens from one side the other every year. Got our first chickens by mail-order, a box of 40 sexed chicks. All arrived alive and only one died before growing up. Had plenty of eggs, Fed them grower pellets, then regular chicken feed and corn. Supplemented that with kitchen scraps, yard waste (grass clippings and leaves) and a friend brought over 4-6 50 lbs bags of "day-old" donuts once a month. Even gave the chickens an 8 foot shark we caught in a gill net. "P-e-ee-www", do not recommennd. As time we on we replaced the chickens with ones bought locally, maybe $2-3 apiece depending on age. We had enough eggs to sell cheap to neighbors, to keep us and our cats and dogs well-fed too. The problem about neighbors, even though we sold the eggs really cheap was that we'd occasionally get a gripe about "blood in the egg" or some kid sent by his mama at 0730 on a Sunday morning wanting a dozen (our dozen was always 13) eggs for a handful of pennies, nickels and a dime or two. We quit selling eggs and fed the surplus to the pets or gave them away to friends at work.
The real upside to the split chicken pen was that chickens will do ALL of the composting work on whatever you toss into their pen. So we harvested eggs and rich compost (once a year). It was fun times. Kids liked it. They helped in tending ducks, geese, potbelly pigs, rabbits, guineas, 1 turkey and 1 peacock, 2 Sicilian donkeys and both kids did hog and steer projects in 4-H and FFA. I raised cattle in onesies-twosies for freezer beef.
Yeah, much as I like fresh eggs, chickens ain't happening, even if it weren't for HOA bylaws (which, btw, only specify no fowl. I'm wait for some of my neighbors to test that theory).
Honestly, I question myself on the regular why I’m doing this. Partly, it’s habit. But also it is very nice to have enough eggs to share, which will happen once all of them are laying.
Love this! We're buying a house in middle-Tennessee that has a sturdy, established coop in the backyard, so it would be a shame NOT to get chickens! But I know they come with a lot of stuff to learn, so we'll so how we city-folk do by next year. 😆
On a related note one of my favorite writers, E.B. White (1/2 of Strunk & White) has a collection of his letters with a Mr. Ware - Gin, Chickens and a Maine Friendship for anyone who has an obscure taste for good writers and poultry-related forays.
We have 5 roosters and 14 or so hens living in the same chicken yard. Surprisingly we don't have rooster fights. they seem to mostly get along really well. I keep wanting to roast a rooster but they are all pets to my wife.
Predators are our biggest problem. first the things that eat eggs but not chickens. snakes, possums, etc.. Probably including an egg eating chicken. Which one or ones is harder to identify. Our chicken yard is probably 2000 or 3000 sq ft.. probably 50x50 ft. Inside we have a 10x10 chain link fence dog run with 4ft tall sides that we took pig panels from tractor supply and using them created a arched roof that we put a tarp over. Every couple years we buy a new tarp and just put it over the old one. Think we 3 layered right now. We purchase them big enough to touch the ground on both sides. need at least 20 footer for that. In summer we pull sides out like a flap on a tent to let it have full air flow. In winter it is all enclosed with tarp or poly panels. We enclosed the back with some old poly-carbonate panels and the front with chicken wire and in winter poly panels.. So they have a 100 sq ft coop that they go to in the evening..
We have lost birds on an intermittent basis. Once in a long time to age or illness but rarely. more often birds and once in a while something four footed will get in and go on a killing spree. 2 to 5 birds.. more like something that likes to kill. I keep hoping to lay eyes on it and improve the world rifle style but have never gotten clear tracks nor seen it. Just small hole dug under fence and lots of dead bodies with heads eaten or maybe one with guts eaten. Usually a missing bird that probably got dragged off. Had a fox years ago grab a chicken only a few feet from us and just sit there looking at us with it in its mouth.. grabbed rifle quick and missed shot because of dead optic. battery powered sights are no longer allowed. tritium never fails. scared it off though and it dropped chicken which got back up and ran for home.
also have a peking duck. The 5th one.. sigh... I have put my foot down that we will never have a peking duck again. they are large and bully the chickens horribly. My wife loves it (not bullying just the duck) though so again what am I going to do. Mallards seem to fit in but then they fly away. yes I know about clipping their wings but.. does anyone actually ever get out and catch the chickens and ducks one by one and then clip wings... thats a hell no in 15 years of chickens it's never happened here.
chicks. So we used to get chicks from feed and grain store near here. 2.50 to 4 dollars a chick. They always did good. only one died in 15 years out of 40 or so. Then I bought one of those round automatic chick incubators ( https://www.amazon.com/Incubator-Automatic-Humidity-Incubators-Classroom/dp/B0FY4NS24S ) we started hatching our own chicks. One I wanted to be a bit more self sufficient and two over the last 6 years there has been times I really didn't want to introduce birds from outside our flock due to stuff running through the chickens nationwide.
Incubator was pretty foolproof but hatching chicks was weird. One incubator had a candling light on it. We also tried flashlights. yeah... I don't care if they were brown shell or white .... candling doesn't work.. .period... grrr.. Also some of our birds lay eggs with fairly thin shells and some with shells that could be bomb shelters. We found that some chicks died in the first round of hatching because they couldn't get out. After that, when they started to hatch, we would a day or so later crack open eggs and help the chicks in the thick egg shells. for every 10 eggs we might get 4 to 5 chicks. We have hatched 3 batches so far and it has done well.. problem with doing this is that you get more roosters.. they are beautiful roosters but im tired of feeding birds that i am not allowed to cook and that don't produce eggs.
I don't do much with them myself but my wife goes out and sits with them and has a rooster or two and a bunch of hens that will follow her around or try to crawl into her lap.
And yes they are not cheap. the fencing and stuff to the coop probably cost a 300 to 700 dollers not counting the repurposed stuff. Probably another 300 for feeders over the years and heat lamps and stuff.. there is always stuff. That is not the cost though... thats just the ground floor... what costs is the couple bags of chicken feed every 3 to 4 weeks with that many chickens. 25 to 35 dollars every month for 15 years. call it 400 a year or more.. laying feed and scratch (dont forget chick feed for the first 7 months before they start even laying eggs)
Eggs are back to 2 dollars or less a dozen for cheap eggs or maybe 4 dollars a dozen for whatever cage free eggs means. We eat about 6 dozen a month. So we can spend 12 to 24 dollars a month at the store right now. Even at the talked about 5 dollars a dozen your not quite breaking even. Trust me that is cheaper. Are our eggs better.. yes, they are better. The positive and it is what keeps me spending the money is that once in a while weather event or threat of some bullshit happening that causes grocery stores to shut down for a while.. We have eggs regardless. If stuff really went south I would triple or more our chickens as fast as I could. Oh another positive is that all food scraps get recycled to eggs.
We keep talking about fencing in the entire back yard which is about 1/3 of an acre and letting them have the run during the day which would decrease food cost for them, but haven't done it yet. Drive by hawking and owlings would go up though. also you then have to start searching for where they are laying the eggs. When we had lots of escapee's back in the day I would find nests everywhere with 5 to 20 eggs in them that they had hidden everywhere. Had to throw them away as we had no idea how old they were. Since we have never had broody chickens we have never had one actually hatch eggs. I keep thinking about putting in a separate brooding hutch and seeing what happens but again.. work... sigh.
ok... im tired just thinking about all the things we haven't done for the chickens we need to.. to much like work... lol..
Every other year we get Jumbo Pekins to send to Freezer Camp. I don’t keep them longer than that anymore because the drakes are rapey with the chickens.
I have successfully fended off inquiries into poultry from my wife, so far.
Wasn't a farm kid, but I could smell the pasture and coop from my back yard. There are few romantic memories of extended farm visits left. They're cute when they're little, but vicious little therapods once they grow.
I have considered raising rabbits for meat, but since my beloved had a pet rabbit once, I'm convinced I would end up with a herd of cuddlebunnies instead of crockpot bunnies. From what I can gather, you get a lot of the benefits of raising meat chickens without a lot of the drama of raising chickens (quieter, less likely to wing it over the fence, not quite as violent). Only drawback would be the lack of eggs.
Friend on the Mountain raised chickens for years and shared many wonderful eggs. Decided after a long and thorough study that rabbits were easier to raise, provided good protein, and were overall more cost-efficient. I add this only because while I am truly ignorant on the subject, friend Scott was amazingly careful and thorough about anything practical. Might be he was onto something. Don't know.
Roflmao. I have an extra banty rooster with a Napoleon complex if anyone is interested. Currently we have about 35 egg layers and 25 ranger chicks that will go to Freezer Camp in July. This is fewer chickens than in previous years because there are only 3 of us at home now. They free range, which doesn’t bother the neighbors because most of them have chickens, too. I’m still trying to figure out where the Ameraucana hen came from 4 years ago… she’s the reason half my layers now have beards…
This is what my wife does too. Though she lets them out for several hours in our back yard in the late fall to early spring. (We have a tall fence all around it.) When she first started doing this, I nicknamed them "Chickens of Mass Destruction". This was when the US was deeply involved in the Iraq war. Had hawk attacks twice in twenty years, but we stopped them before they could kill any chickens. . Only beat up one hen each time, which recovered later.
(Copying my response from elsewhere over to here.) Watching the little video clip in Cedar's blog post today (her chickens walking around their pen), and Juniper (Cedar's little sister) was making happy little noises about "Chickens!" LOL! I'm getting chickens again (ordered chicks who will be here later this summer), not for eggs so much as to raise chicks for our own meat supply. I think Juniper will be pleased. So will the little dogs, who will happily kill and eat all of the poultry unless the birds are securely fenced (my little dogs, to be clear, who are excellent hunters of moles and all things rodent, but also anything else smallish that moves).
I've had dogs who were fine with loose poultry; these little Rat Terrier X Schipperke's are not.
I sent for four breeds, three pullets and two cockerels of each (with intention to eat the extra cockerel if both survive): Delaware, White Rock, Speckled Sussex (which I've wanted forever), and Buckeye. They are all among the best meat producers of the dual-purpose breeds. I'll have to buy another incubator because I gave mine to my sister last year, but won't need that until these birds start laying next year.
Initially I'll raise them in my raised brooder house, but then I think I'll separate them into four chicken tractors and do a spiral cross-breeding program, and see what we come up with.
We bought a house on 4 acres in the semi-rural middle part of our Florida Panhandle county. No HOA, zoned for low density housing, farming and pretty much anything else. First thing we got was goats and chickens because the two daughters were 8 and 9 and wanted them. Built a 35' by 35' chicken pen with a cheap wooden coop in the center and the whole thing later divided into halves so that we could rotate the chickens from one side the other every year. Got our first chickens by mail-order, a box of 40 sexed chicks. All arrived alive and only one died before growing up. Had plenty of eggs, Fed them grower pellets, then regular chicken feed and corn. Supplemented that with kitchen scraps, yard waste (grass clippings and leaves) and a friend brought over 4-6 50 lbs bags of "day-old" donuts once a month. Even gave the chickens an 8 foot shark we caught in a gill net. "P-e-ee-www", do not recommennd. As time we on we replaced the chickens with ones bought locally, maybe $2-3 apiece depending on age. We had enough eggs to sell cheap to neighbors, to keep us and our cats and dogs well-fed too. The problem about neighbors, even though we sold the eggs really cheap was that we'd occasionally get a gripe about "blood in the egg" or some kid sent by his mama at 0730 on a Sunday morning wanting a dozen (our dozen was always 13) eggs for a handful of pennies, nickels and a dime or two. We quit selling eggs and fed the surplus to the pets or gave them away to friends at work.
The real upside to the split chicken pen was that chickens will do ALL of the composting work on whatever you toss into their pen. So we harvested eggs and rich compost (once a year). It was fun times. Kids liked it. They helped in tending ducks, geese, potbelly pigs, rabbits, guineas, 1 turkey and 1 peacock, 2 Sicilian donkeys and both kids did hog and steer projects in 4-H and FFA. I raised cattle in onesies-twosies for freezer beef.
Heh, I'm having fun imagining the response of my neighbors here in north-suburban Chicago. Ho boy. Think they don't like me and my politics now!
Fun daydreams, anyway.
Nice. Way to much work lol. But nice
Yeah, much as I like fresh eggs, chickens ain't happening, even if it weren't for HOA bylaws (which, btw, only specify no fowl. I'm wait for some of my neighbors to test that theory).
Honestly, I question myself on the regular why I’m doing this. Partly, it’s habit. But also it is very nice to have enough eggs to share, which will happen once all of them are laying.
We're keeping wild turkeys. Very cost-efficient but no fresh eggs, of course. 😋
And a ton of entertainment to watch them!
Love this! We're buying a house in middle-Tennessee that has a sturdy, established coop in the backyard, so it would be a shame NOT to get chickens! But I know they come with a lot of stuff to learn, so we'll so how we city-folk do by next year. 😆
Chickens are easy keepers. The chickens will do the heavy lifting, Devon.
On a related note one of my favorite writers, E.B. White (1/2 of Strunk & White) has a collection of his letters with a Mr. Ware - Gin, Chickens and a Maine Friendship for anyone who has an obscure taste for good writers and poultry-related forays.
We have 5 roosters and 14 or so hens living in the same chicken yard. Surprisingly we don't have rooster fights. they seem to mostly get along really well. I keep wanting to roast a rooster but they are all pets to my wife.
Predators are our biggest problem. first the things that eat eggs but not chickens. snakes, possums, etc.. Probably including an egg eating chicken. Which one or ones is harder to identify. Our chicken yard is probably 2000 or 3000 sq ft.. probably 50x50 ft. Inside we have a 10x10 chain link fence dog run with 4ft tall sides that we took pig panels from tractor supply and using them created a arched roof that we put a tarp over. Every couple years we buy a new tarp and just put it over the old one. Think we 3 layered right now. We purchase them big enough to touch the ground on both sides. need at least 20 footer for that. In summer we pull sides out like a flap on a tent to let it have full air flow. In winter it is all enclosed with tarp or poly panels. We enclosed the back with some old poly-carbonate panels and the front with chicken wire and in winter poly panels.. So they have a 100 sq ft coop that they go to in the evening..
We have lost birds on an intermittent basis. Once in a long time to age or illness but rarely. more often birds and once in a while something four footed will get in and go on a killing spree. 2 to 5 birds.. more like something that likes to kill. I keep hoping to lay eyes on it and improve the world rifle style but have never gotten clear tracks nor seen it. Just small hole dug under fence and lots of dead bodies with heads eaten or maybe one with guts eaten. Usually a missing bird that probably got dragged off. Had a fox years ago grab a chicken only a few feet from us and just sit there looking at us with it in its mouth.. grabbed rifle quick and missed shot because of dead optic. battery powered sights are no longer allowed. tritium never fails. scared it off though and it dropped chicken which got back up and ran for home.
also have a peking duck. The 5th one.. sigh... I have put my foot down that we will never have a peking duck again. they are large and bully the chickens horribly. My wife loves it (not bullying just the duck) though so again what am I going to do. Mallards seem to fit in but then they fly away. yes I know about clipping their wings but.. does anyone actually ever get out and catch the chickens and ducks one by one and then clip wings... thats a hell no in 15 years of chickens it's never happened here.
chicks. So we used to get chicks from feed and grain store near here. 2.50 to 4 dollars a chick. They always did good. only one died in 15 years out of 40 or so. Then I bought one of those round automatic chick incubators ( https://www.amazon.com/Incubator-Automatic-Humidity-Incubators-Classroom/dp/B0FY4NS24S ) we started hatching our own chicks. One I wanted to be a bit more self sufficient and two over the last 6 years there has been times I really didn't want to introduce birds from outside our flock due to stuff running through the chickens nationwide.
Incubator was pretty foolproof but hatching chicks was weird. One incubator had a candling light on it. We also tried flashlights. yeah... I don't care if they were brown shell or white .... candling doesn't work.. .period... grrr.. Also some of our birds lay eggs with fairly thin shells and some with shells that could be bomb shelters. We found that some chicks died in the first round of hatching because they couldn't get out. After that, when they started to hatch, we would a day or so later crack open eggs and help the chicks in the thick egg shells. for every 10 eggs we might get 4 to 5 chicks. We have hatched 3 batches so far and it has done well.. problem with doing this is that you get more roosters.. they are beautiful roosters but im tired of feeding birds that i am not allowed to cook and that don't produce eggs.
I don't do much with them myself but my wife goes out and sits with them and has a rooster or two and a bunch of hens that will follow her around or try to crawl into her lap.
And yes they are not cheap. the fencing and stuff to the coop probably cost a 300 to 700 dollers not counting the repurposed stuff. Probably another 300 for feeders over the years and heat lamps and stuff.. there is always stuff. That is not the cost though... thats just the ground floor... what costs is the couple bags of chicken feed every 3 to 4 weeks with that many chickens. 25 to 35 dollars every month for 15 years. call it 400 a year or more.. laying feed and scratch (dont forget chick feed for the first 7 months before they start even laying eggs)
Eggs are back to 2 dollars or less a dozen for cheap eggs or maybe 4 dollars a dozen for whatever cage free eggs means. We eat about 6 dozen a month. So we can spend 12 to 24 dollars a month at the store right now. Even at the talked about 5 dollars a dozen your not quite breaking even. Trust me that is cheaper. Are our eggs better.. yes, they are better. The positive and it is what keeps me spending the money is that once in a while weather event or threat of some bullshit happening that causes grocery stores to shut down for a while.. We have eggs regardless. If stuff really went south I would triple or more our chickens as fast as I could. Oh another positive is that all food scraps get recycled to eggs.
We keep talking about fencing in the entire back yard which is about 1/3 of an acre and letting them have the run during the day which would decrease food cost for them, but haven't done it yet. Drive by hawking and owlings would go up though. also you then have to start searching for where they are laying the eggs. When we had lots of escapee's back in the day I would find nests everywhere with 5 to 20 eggs in them that they had hidden everywhere. Had to throw them away as we had no idea how old they were. Since we have never had broody chickens we have never had one actually hatch eggs. I keep thinking about putting in a separate brooding hutch and seeing what happens but again.. work... sigh.
ok... im tired just thinking about all the things we haven't done for the chickens we need to.. to much like work... lol..
Every other year we get Jumbo Pekins to send to Freezer Camp. I don’t keep them longer than that anymore because the drakes are rapey with the chickens.
Ducks are just that way. I don’t keep them for several reasons, that is one.
This is our last. I finally lost patience.
I have successfully fended off inquiries into poultry from my wife, so far.
Wasn't a farm kid, but I could smell the pasture and coop from my back yard. There are few romantic memories of extended farm visits left. They're cute when they're little, but vicious little therapods once they grow.
I have considered raising rabbits for meat, but since my beloved had a pet rabbit once, I'm convinced I would end up with a herd of cuddlebunnies instead of crockpot bunnies. From what I can gather, you get a lot of the benefits of raising meat chickens without a lot of the drama of raising chickens (quieter, less likely to wing it over the fence, not quite as violent). Only drawback would be the lack of eggs.
Meat birds are kind of gross, but they are around for just a couple of months, so that’s easier.
Friend on the Mountain raised chickens for years and shared many wonderful eggs. Decided after a long and thorough study that rabbits were easier to raise, provided good protein, and were overall more cost-efficient. I add this only because while I am truly ignorant on the subject, friend Scott was amazingly careful and thorough about anything practical. Might be he was onto something. Don't know.
Roflmao. I have an extra banty rooster with a Napoleon complex if anyone is interested. Currently we have about 35 egg layers and 25 ranger chicks that will go to Freezer Camp in July. This is fewer chickens than in previous years because there are only 3 of us at home now. They free range, which doesn’t bother the neighbors because most of them have chickens, too. I’m still trying to figure out where the Ameraucana hen came from 4 years ago… she’s the reason half my layers now have beards…
This is what my wife does too. Though she lets them out for several hours in our back yard in the late fall to early spring. (We have a tall fence all around it.) When she first started doing this, I nicknamed them "Chickens of Mass Destruction". This was when the US was deeply involved in the Iraq war. Had hawk attacks twice in twenty years, but we stopped them before they could kill any chickens. . Only beat up one hen each time, which recovered later.