OT - Anybody else raise chickens?

CarolinaCrazy

Anybody else out there raise chickens? We live in a pretty suburban area but got ourselves a small flock of 4 birds this past spring. Finally, after almost 7 months, we got our first egg this week.

Having never spent much time on farms, raising the birds has been quite an adventure. They are stupid as rocks, but really friendly, and fun to just sit and watch.

Here's the flock, and our first 'real' egg.

henapple

I'm pretty sure my neighbors would shoot my cocks. ..I miss living where I can do what I want.

Mattman3969

Wasn't @MrCookingNurse raising chickens and doin the micro farm thing??

Dobie

I raise them on the grid I couldnt raise any food animals, they would all be my pets ~:>

shtgunal3

I have a yard full of chickens. There is probably 10-12 grown birds and about 16 babies right now. They eat a lot of insects.

Focker

Really cool.  Have seriously considered starting a small flock and building a rolling coop.  Thought it would be good for my son too.

For now, I get 3 dozen of farm eggs for $5 from the housekeeping lady at work. 

Eggcelsior

Focker said:

Really cool.  Have seriously considered starting a small flock and building a rolling coop.  Thought it would be good for my son too.

For now, I get 3 dozen of farm eggs for $5 from the housekeeping lady at work. 

That's not bad! My dad gets fresh eggs for 2/doz from a FFA instructor at school.

Mickey

Have neighbors who do and we buy all our eggs from them

Legume

Wish I could have chickens. Damn neighborhood association.

MrCookingNurse

Mattman3969 said:

Wasn't @MrCookingNurse raising chickens and doin the micro farm thing??

Yes sir. Been going pretty well. The hospital calls a lot so I'm not sure if this while be a long term agenda.

My girls haven't been laying very well and if they keep it up they'll be supper soon. I'm giving them 1 more week. I have a long weekend coming up and it'd work to butcher the herd.

The eggs are amazing and my kids love the chickens. Good temperament and don't need a whole lot. I've had some just to eat and it's very nice.

fishlessman

would love to have a few birds but the coyote/wolf pups in the area would get them all. my brother lost most of his birds this summer

NervousDad

My neighbors have a few and I'd love to have them, but there are just too many coyotes around here. My other neighbor says it's the nicest coyote feeder that he's ever seen

HendersonTRKing

My wife has been itching to get into this, but I'm not sure how serious she is or if it's really a good idea and sustainable as a hobby  Is it alot of work?  Are the eggs that good?  (We love eggs and end up buying from a local farm stand.)  We have alot of foxes around and that's got to be a worry, right?

HendersonTRKing

One positive:  if we do it, we'll finally have a definitive answer to the eternal question (The EGG came first!)

CarolinaCrazy

It's really not a lot of work - the first couple weeks when they are chicks are kind of a hassle. But now that they are outside, they only take about 5 minutes per day to check their food and water and clean the coop a bit.  I have a small coop attached to a fenced in run, so they get outside a good bit during the day. 

I neglected to mention that the first 4 pullets I bought I was letting free range in the yard and a fox got them all. 

Now the are behind some 4' Chicken wire when the are not in their secured in coop and run. I know the chickenwire isn't enough to completely avoid the fox, but it will slow him down hopefully.

Mross

I have raised some. They are not too much work and the eggs are so much better than store bought eggs. A good coop is a must!

dldawes1

+1 What LEGUME said !! HOA.

The only chickens I raise are spatchcock on the upper grill !!

ksmyrl

No here, the local produce stand has real eggs for 3 bucks a dozen. A little high but they are good. This makes me think of a friend at work who bought a chicken and never got an egg. Come to find out she bought a baby rooster. Just like the Seinfeld episode. "That would explain little Jerry's poor egg production".

Central_Bama_Egger

This is something I'd love to get into slightly.

fletcherfam

We have had 4 birds for 3 years now. They are essier than my cat is in terms of maintenance.

Cowdogs

How noisy are they?  Are any breeds know to be quieter than others?

CarolinaCrazy

As long as you don't have roosters they are pretty quiet. 

Doc_Eggerton

We used to have two until someone down the street ratted us out to the city.  None of my neighbors cared, but a jerk a mile away did.  They went out in the yard, but at night had a crate in the house.  Chickens are great pets, and you get eggs (which get bigger as they get older).  The jerk down the street should have come with us when we gave them to a farmer, I am sure he would have enjoyed how my little girls cried.

Grillin_beers

My wife is deathly afraid of birds so that wouldn't fly here. No pun intended. However her parents raise cows and I alwyas enjoy that meat.

fletcherfam

I agree with what @CarolinaCrazy‌ said, they squawk slightly when laying eggs but other than that nothing. My cat meows at me more than they do. And as long as you keep them cool they are basically kill proof. We forget to buy feed and tjey are still alive off of table scraps.

Sea2Ski

I raised a backyard flock for about 12 years. The count of birds rainged from 4- to 15 . Love them and miss them. The last 4 went quickly after a racoon got in the coop and took off their heads and licked up the blood, and only lightly tore into the body - what a waste.  So, the fence has been torn out, and will be replaced this fall or the spring with a heavier duty one. If anyone knows where I can get a heavy nylon coated 1" fence - please let me know!

Love the birds. Bought them by looks and not for egg production, though I always had more eggs than I wanted. Originally got them for tick control. They will eat every type of thing they can choke down. From wiping out the deer tick population on my property, to following be behind me when mowed the yard eating moths and spiders, moving up to frogs and even "not quite fully grown" mice. Yes - if they can catch a mouse, they will tenderize it by whacking it against a rock a few dozen times, then swallowing it whole - same way with the frogs. If I did not see it myself, I would not be saying it here.....

Care is easy - Winter - have to have them out of the wind, and prevent the water from freezing. Have a area of about 2 sq/ft per bird, and hang a heat lamp in the corner of the coop above the water, and you are set.  I only turned that light on when it was below 28 out - above that, they produced enough heat to keep the water from freezing.  They are hardy down to -24F without protection or supplemental heat. I remember going out on single digit nights, and they were all fluffed out, but perfectly fine.

Summer = they need shade and ample water. No shade = dead chickens.

Predators are the biggest threat - everything loves to eat chickens. People, racoons, fox, hawks, possums, owls, and if you have chicks - snakes.  Chicken wire fence is good for about 2 years, then the rusted spots weaken enough for racoons to bite through it - and they will. If you can fit your fist through the hole - they can get in too.

I had all kinds of breeds. Seabrights were the friendliest and most intelligent. I would be digging or splitting wood, and they would stay out of the way until they saw some yummy crawling thing, they would jump in the area get it, then hop out to get back out of the way. They loved it when I was carrying a shovel.....

Training: I had a rooster "' A La King" that was my buddy. Trained him to fly into a cat carrier in the evening, and he would be put in a utility garage to keep his crowing under control for the neighbors. I always fed them a handfull of scratch grains as a treat from a red solo cup. They would see that and they knew what it was and would come racing over faster than a dog chasing a ball - well, a whippet or greyhound might be faster - but it would be a close one. It was a good way to round them up to get them in the coop if I needed to for some reason.

Their eyesight is incredible. They could be on the other side of the yard, and they could see what kind of food I was snacking on. Any type of berry or nut - they were running full speed with wings out for stability. A sandwich - they would wonder my way. Anything they did not like - they would not bother.

Egg production: the hens need a diet high enough in protein and enough light. If either are too low, no eggs. If I recall properly, I think the feed which I only supplied in the fall after the first killing frost to the late spring was 19% protein?  I would have to see what the bag was.... 
Light - I think it was a minimum of 10 hours. Summer was fine - there is enough sun. In the spring and fall I did not supply the light to give their bodies a break. Producing a egg every 1-2 days is a lot of stress on the bird. In the winter they produced eggs because the heat lamp gave them the light in addition to keep the water from freezing, and a warm comfortable coop as well. You also have to supply them a source of calcium.  You can by a 50 lb bag of crushed oyster shell for about $8. The first bag lasted me over 8 years, and I am 1/2 though my second bag.

In summary: Summer you have shade, in the winter, shelter from the wind. All the time have a safe predator proof coop, supplemental food, and crushed oyster shell and you are good to go. I went on many week long vacations with no one checking on them and they were always fine.

Any other questions, do not hesitate to ask. Like so many thing on the web, it can often sound very difficult. Raising chickens isn't one of them. They are easy. Like cooking a pork butt or a spatch'ed chicken - it is only as difficult as you make it.

Cowdogs

Thanks Sea2Ski.  Very informative.