Many people are starting to see the value of having backyard chickens again. There has been a sort of "movement" in this direction all across the country for the last several years. It is what I refer to above about getting back to our roots. Raising your own chickens can be quite a rewarding experience if you can survive past the initial setup phase where things that can go wrong often do. This is the adventure part though, and if you choose to skip chickens just because it might be adventurous, you are truly missing out. Here is the story of how our family got started, hope you enjoy reading! And later on I will update this page with new stories and current info about Chickens, so that you will always find some new information waiting for you! I will also link directly to any blog posts relating to chickens so you can come to this page to find the latest.
Chicken Related Posts:
What came first? The Chicken or the Egg?
Raising Baby Chickens, 101
OUR STORY:
It all started in the spring of 2002 when I came home from a nice Saturday Morning of "Garage sale hopping" with a box full of baby chickens. I had been telling my husband for quite a while that I really wanted to get some chickens. I had them when I was a kid, and I thought it would be a great thing to help teach our spoiled children some responsibility, and the value of hard work. (Not to mention, our family was already eating something like 2 dozen eggs a week!) I had tried and tried to convince him that this was a good idea, but he never really actually agrees to this king of thing. He felt we had enough stress in our lives as it is, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
You see, I figured that if I came home with chickens there wouldn't be much else to say, we'd just have to make it work. Well, my timing wasn't the greatest, I got sooo excited with the whole idea I didn't think about the things that were going on in our life at the time. Needless to say hubby was less than excited. All he did say was, "their your chickens, and I don't want anything to do with them!" There was only one teency weency little problem....
BABY CHICKENS GROW VERY FAST!
We were keeping our babies in a wire dog kennel in the garage and figured we had some time to get a coup built. Hubby was studying for a major certification test he was taking for work, so he really did not want to have to worry about them right then. But the first week I think they doubled in size and we realized that we didn't have as much time as we thought, so the next Saturday we got to work! We spend the whole day making panels to enclose a little square in our yard. My little boys danced around the yard with hammers while hubby cut wood and I stapled on on the chicken wire. It took several Saturdays and some evenings, but it was WONDERFUL! Just what I had imagined! The whole family working together and enjoying each other. It was pure bliss, until......
8 IS NEVER ENOUGH!
My sister in law thought this whole chicken thing was a pretty neat idea and she said she'd like to buy fresh eggs from us when the time came. Well I was worried that 8 chickens wouldn't provide enough eggs for 2 families so I decided to get 8 more. I figured hey, whats the big deal? When you've got 8 birds, whats 8 more? Well these were even smaller babies when we got them and the needed a heat lamp still so we couldn't put them together with the first ones for quite a while.
So now there we were with chickens in the yard and babies in a box in the kitchen.
We had no idea how quickly things could go south! Those babes smelled soooo bad that we couldn't even walk through the kitchen without wanting to barf. We had to clean the box every single day, and hubby was about to flush said birdies down the toilet because it was making him sick.
I actually took matters into my own hands and built a nice, solid brooder out of 2x4's, and covered it with wire mesh and paneling. I STILL USE that same brooder to this day (I built it nearly 10 years ago). The babies were able to stay in it in the garage until they were around 3 months old.
Needless to say we learned a lot. And it was so much fun when the first egg arrived after all of our hard work! We dealt with lots of new struggles like frozen water buckets, hungry racoons, rising feed prices. But the pride we felt in that Chicken Palace that we built with our own two hands (or 8 hands, whatever) is something we haven't forgotten.
FAST FORWARD A FEW YEARS
We had to get rid of our chickens for a while because we built a new home that had no yard or fencing, and ultimately ended up moving from there as well. But in 2007 we moved to a home that was setup for animals, and I couldn't wait to get my birds back. In November of 2008, we ordered chicks in the mail.
We started with a dozen Black Stars and also raised 12 more for some friends for a few weeks, since we had the setup. It was a long ways from the crude beginnings. We had a full 14'x14' barn stall that we gave the birds the run of during the winter until they were full grown. And then, my dear sweet husband, who must REALLY love me, built yet another chicken run, outside the stall door, so the birds could get some sunshine and fresh air.
Luckily, his helpers have grown a bit since the first time, and were able to do more than dance around with hammers... :-)
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