My chickens so far!
I'd been wanting to raise some chickens (for eggs) for quite a while. It is something I think the kids and I will really enjoy doing. This year we finally decided to take the plunge...
On April 8, 2009, we bought our first six chicks from the local feed store.
I didn't know a whole lot about chickens (even less than I do now) and didn't think anything of it that all they had were yellow chicks. After all... all chicks are yellow, right? So, I picked out six of them and took them home.
We made a ramshackle brooder out of a cardboard box, with straw for bedding and a red heat lamp. My husband, Brian, stuck a thermometer in the side of the box so we could monitor the temp. It worked well and the chicks grew rapidly.
Brian soon started work on a coop for them. It turned out to be quite the project! (He likes to complain about it, but I know he doesn't really mind doing it for me.) :)
When we'd had the chicks for one week, I stopped by the feed store again to pick up something else, and I heard a TON of peeping coming from the back of the store where their brooders were. Of course I had to go and investigate, and I was gobsmacked to see all of the different varieties of chicks! Red ones, black ones, spotted ones, striped ones!! I wanted some of those! Oh, if I would have only waited a week!!
I mentioned it to my husband and he said the coop he was building was plenty big enough for a dozen chickens. The plans he was working from had actually said so (and he had even made it bigger than what the plan called for.) He also said he had to go back to town that next day, April 16th, to get some things and he would get some more chicks for me if I told him what I wanted. "I want a variety," I told him. Just get six of as many different kinds as you can."
Bless him, he came home with six of the SAME variety. But at least they were different than what I had already! These new babies were Red Star sex-linked chicks. My husband said that a lot of the ones I had seen must have been sold out already, because he didn't see any black or spotted ones in with the assorted pullets when he was there.
So then I had a dozen babies... six white Leghorns and six Red Stars. They needed a bigger box!
Fast-forward another week to April 22, 2009. I still never stopped wanting more breeds of chickens. I love the way Barred Rock chickens look and Rhode Island Reds, too. It's not that I didn't like my Leghorns and Red Stars... because I do! I love them too! I just wanted a nice variety. The way I figured it, I would have these laying hens for at least three years... possibly longer... and I wanted to get exactly what I wanted to start with.
My husband said the coop would accomodate 18 chickens, but I didn't agree. It might hold that many, sure, but in my opinion, they would be overcrowded. Besides, I didn't want to clean up after that many... at least not to begin with! Let me get used to it first, lol! But I did still want the assortment of breeds and Brian rolled his eyes but was agreeable to me ordering some more babies and selling the extras. He found a neighbor who wants to buy them (she wants them when they get a little older, though... and don't have to be under a heat lamp because she doesn't have one.) That should work out fine, because my new babies won't ship until May 11.
Yes, I ordered six more chicks from MyPetChicken.com. Three Barred Rock pullets and three Rhode Island Red pullets. I should have a nice variety in my coop then! Nobody ever told me this would be so addictive, lol!
Stay tuned!! :D