Chickens

So our plan to get chickens this Spring is still moving forward.  Everyone I talk to who has them, and every book says that they are extremely easy to keep, and are quite rewarding.  The hard part seems to be brooding them for the first month, and then of course, all of the start-up costs.  Everyone says, even finding babysitters for them is much easier than finding a sitter for let’s say, a dog, because the babysitter gets fresh eggs out of the deal.  Hey, I’d hen sit for eggs!

So there’s a couple of things that I’m learning, and decisions that I’ve already made.  First, we’re getting laying chickens, not meat chickens.  I told Knut I have no intention of going out to my yard with a hatchet with the idea of bringing back dinner.  There’s still some prissy city girl left in me for that.

I am not like Knut’s grandma, who keeps her windows so clean that a gorgeous pheasant once flew right into it, breaking it’s own neck.  If my windows were to ever be that clean, and that would happen, I most certainly not go get the bird, clean it, and present it as supper as she did.  My mind just doesn’t work that way.  Fortunately, my windows are never that clean.

He said he’d kill the birds, and I said he had better pluck it and gut it as well, and present it to me clean in a plastic bag with instructions on it on how long it should be cooked.  We could go the butcher route, but at that point, we’re just paying too much for food.

However, the idea of having fresh eggs all the time thrills me to no end.  Not to mention, I think it will be great for the kids to help take care of the chickens.  They need some chores that they can do, and learn that responsibility.  You better believe Silje has already come up with a list of names for chickens.

This year we’re going with a hybrid breed called the “Easter egger.”  They’re not purebreds, so they can’t be in shows, but for some strange reason, I’m not disappointed by this. 😉  Easter eggers lay white, light brown, dark brown, and sometimes green or blue tinted eggs.  Well, I’ve learned each chicken has one color egg that they produce their whole lives.  However, if we get a variety of this hybrid, it’s most likely that we’ll get a variety of egg colors.

I know that the egg color doesn’t effect the taste or nutrition.  I just think it’s plain cool.

I was thinking of getting the chicks in April, so they could start being outside more in May.  However, after talking with neighbors, most of them get chicks in June, as it’s much less fuss to keep them warm that way.

I’m learning about how many perches we’ll need in the coop, and how many nesting boxes.  I’m thinking about getting roughly 20 pullets.  I know what a pullet is now.  We won’t be getting any roosters this time around, since I’m not sure I’m ready for hatching our own quite yet.  Maybe in a year or two we’ll take that route instead of buying chicks to replace others.  I’ve heard that survival of the chicks depends largely on how many you get.  If you start with, say 5 or 6, it’s likely you’ll lose half the first year.  However, if you get over 20, most of them will make it because the have each other.

However, 20 chickens will provide more eggs than our family can eat.  We can easily go through 2 dozen eggs a week, and sometimes 3 if I’m doing a bunch of baking.  20 chickens, if they all survive, should give us roughly over 6 dozen a week.  We’ll probably start to solve that problem by eating more eggs.  Then we’ll wait for David and Elias to become teenagers and we’ll need to have a flock of 40. 😉  Plus, I’ve learned you can freeze eggs by cracking them into ice cube trays, and use them in the winter when the egg production drops dramatically.

We’ll probably give a bunch away too, as we have no desire to get into the egg business.  Knut and I go around and around about how to do that fairly.  We’d like to give away eggs, but we don’t want people to just stop by demanding eggs.  So we decided if we got into that situation, where someone was showing up consistently, we’d charge them a few bucks so that at least it would help cover our costs.  So I think that will be our rule: random gift = free.  Routine moochers = help us cover the costs.  (Note: we are neither seeking out or turning away moochers at this point.  Actually, we don’t even have chickens yet, and when we get chickens, they won’t be laying for several months.  Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.)

I’ve window shopped a bit online, and now I need to shop around town to see what kind of chicken supplies are there.  Things like litter, feed, etc.  I’m sure since we live in a rural place, the choices will be quite abundant.  I think this is one of the few things where there are more options in stores here than in the city.

As we’re doing more and more research, our list of things to buy gets a bit longer, which is a bit discouraging.  Knut realized he might need a varmint gun.  Talking to our neighbors, chickens tend to attract coyotes in our area.  I hope we’ll never have to use it.  Knut will have to research the laws about this as well, and see if he needs a special permit to shoot a pest, although I’m hoping having Lena around will scare way pests.  My needs are a bit less.  I don’t have any rubber work boots.  I realized if the coop is ever going to get clean I should probably have a pair of shoes that I don’t also wear to the grocery store.  The kids already have rubber boots.  Second hand places are great places to find rubber boots for kids as they rarely have been worn.  So I’ll be boot shopping for me.

I know…the lengths a woman go to in order to get new shoes.  I’m hoping to find something pink and girly.

I’m a bit worried as to how Lena will respond to having chickens in our yard.  Labs are bird dogs, and are bred to hunt birds.  She loves chasing birds out of our yard, which is why we only enjoy viewing them on the bird feeder when she is inside.  She’s quite smart, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she caught on that these birds are to be protected.  At least that’s my hope.

If there is a problem, we’ll probably either have to leash her when she’s outside, or get some sort of fence put up for the chickens.  Right now we’re hoping to have them run free in the yard like several of our neighbors.  We’ve had a grub problem in the past few years, and chickens are walking grub eaters and fertilizers.  They’ll destroy a small yard, but make a large yard beautiful.  Our yard is acreage, so I think we’ll be fine.

At any rate, I think this will be a fun new adventure.