Understanding Chicken Math

Here's an example of how chicken math works....

We have 8 laying hens and this spring I thought I'd like to add 4 chicks to make an even dozen.  My husband approved.  He came home and checked out the new chicks and said, "uh... honey?  did you forget how to count to 4?"  I said, "no, I got 4"  he said, "I count 6!"  and I said, "well yeah! 2 of the breeds are straight run so I HAD to get an extra of each of those to improve my odds of getting pullets... DUH!"  He said, "chicken math, right?!"

How adorable!! 

Lute,

Chicks and ducklings do not count in chicken math. So at this point you do not have any chickens.

You'd better head back to the feedstore.

Imp

We decided the free chicks they're giving away with a bag of feed purchase don't count, either. So now I've got a dozen barred rock chicks that "aren't there". Course, none of the chicks really count, neither do the bantams (even though they started laying like gangbusters two weeks ago  ). The roo is iffy, like half a chicken. And the pullets from last year aren't really that old (okay they're a year and laying great) so they don't really count. So where do all these eggs come from if I have no chickens?

Such adorable pictures!!!!!

ha i did that while my family was out buying bees, we went in to see the new shipment of chicks and get new bedding for my other batch.... 13 new adorable chicks and we managed to get two breeds that i wanted!

How sweet! If those chicks are hens they should be very good layers. I have one Golden Buff girl and she lays huge ROUND eggs. They're like a ball. She lays like crazy too. Nice egg layers!

~ Aspen

Ok... Chicken math..

So I started last year with 25 chicks, my first batch ever, 5 of them did not make it out of the brooder. They were really smalla nd got laid on and squished by the others, so that left me with 20. These 20 made it out of the 4ft by 4ft brooder and into the chicken coops that I had built for them. We left them in the coop about a month before free ranging them in the 3 acres of grass, through out the summer we lost one here and there and by the time I ordered by second batch we had 12(the original 12 we call them since we still have them now).

I sat down to figure out how many I needed to order to get me back to the original number of 25... I ordered 10 Bard rock pullets, 1 bard rock roo, 10 white lace wyns and 5 White Frizzle Cochins, plus 1 mystery chick. So that gives me 26 new babies coming in which equals out to 25 total chickens right? (ok maybe it gives me 38 but who is counting?) Now at this point my girlfriend is thinking that I am insane. 38 chickens wont fit in the coops she says and I need to either sell some chickens or curb the order... I did neither.. :)

On arrival all 5 cochin were dead, :(, plus a few of the bard rocks and Wyns did not make it past the 48 hour mark. (We got them delivered in March and transit weather was VERY cold. So now out of my new ones we have 16 babies. The girlfriend said that is perfect!! We will surely lose a few to the preditors and that will give us the 25 that I wanted to begin with.. Right?... WRONG..

I took said girlfriend to a local chicken farm/hatchery and lo and behold she fell in love with 7 more chicks (Planned? Maybe ;))

So now we are back up to 23 chicks and 12 hens.  Which if they live we will have 35 total chickens (10 more than was approved by the other half).

So now here we are in July and I find out that there is a Hatchery that will send chicks 3 at a time!! we just lost our Bard rock roo to the pigs, (One accidently stepped on him :() and one of the other "hens" started crowing so that means I need to buy 10 more to replace them right?

34 chickens are left right now and I am staging to order at least 10 more and she says that she does not understand chicken math.. I HAVE to order these to keep us at 25 hens right?