Explaining Chicken Math - Page 8

OMG---that was the funniest story ever!!!  Pirate flag!  I love it!  lmao, still with tears in my eyes!

 MY PEOPLE!!! ---My DH is terrified of chicken math....oh, he doesn't know what it's called but apperently i've been practicing chicken math with dogs and cats for years. 

I promised myself I wouldn't get caught up in chicken math... That has lasted exactly 9 weeks. Ha!  A friend and I ordered 25 chicks from McMurray, they came with 3 extra.  1 EE died the first day.  In that order we had 17 Americaunas, 6 Silver laced Wyndottes, 2 SL polish, 2 Black white crested polish, 1 cochin and a mystery chick. long story short we lost one of each polish and 3 Americaunas. So once my friend takes her chickens I will be down to 1 black WC polish, 1 wyndotte and 6 EEs and the mystery chick.  When we lost our polish my kids were devestated!  They are the pets and we love them!  So I found a fellow BYCer that is hatching polish this weekend so we are getting them, probably 4, So with all that I will have 13 chickens, possibly 14 because the cochin really looks like a rooster and my friends DH won't let her take it home if it is. so 15? Although, technically, I am counting eggs before they hatch....

  Yes, you did just say, "first".    Welcome to BYC and WELCOME to the world of chickens. 

I have to say that SOME of this chicken math stuff is due solely to the fact that you chicken people are sneaky. 

 

You start luring us to the dark side by saying, "Here. Have a few of these eggs, I have a few extra this week".  Of course, the eggs are freaking AWESOME.  After a few months of eating store-bought eggs, we start to turn this idea around in our heads.  I see just see this chicken in a cage.  I envision the battery setups.  Then I think of green pastures and cute chickens in different colors.  The next time I see the chicken pusher, I ask her a few questions.  "How many chickens do you have?  How much space do you have for them?  Do you have to lock them up at night?  How many do you lose to predators?  Are they hard to take care of?"

 

"Chickens are easy," she says.  "They don't take up much time at all," she says.  "You just need a spacious coop, and some chicken feed and water, and you're all set," she says.  "We are placing our chick order, do you want to order JUST A FEW to see if you like it? You can always put them up on Craig's list if it's not for you."

 

BAM.  I ordered 15 birds.  Had my husband build the Woods style open-front coop.  I read enough for 5 people.  I ask the chicken pusher another 5000 or so questions.  I joined BYC and asked a few thousand more questions.  That was over a year ago.  My chicken equation is as follows:

 

15 chicks - 12 chicks(post office messup) = 3 chicks.  + 14 chicks to replace those = 17.  - 5 due to predator, rooster going to camp, and deformity causing failure to thrive = 12.    Hubby brings home a rescue rooster.  I place a spring chick order.  11 chicks arrives in April, but the rooster got killed by a fox.  So I of course had to have "his" babies because he was such a nice boy.  6/7 hatched on June 4th.  So somehow I am forgetting how I got here, but I have 26 chickens.  I will be donating 3 to a woman who lost her hens in a flood.  I will be down to 23.  Oy.

 

What you chicken people DON'T tell us is: You don't JUST need a coop.  You need a coop built to withstand a grizzly bear invasion.  Then you need to build a secure run.  THEN when you buy JUST A FEW MORE chicks, you'll need a grow-out area, because flock integration is a tricky thing sometimes.  Hopefully this can now double as a broody hatching area, because now I have a breeding plan for a self-sustaining flock.  I order meat chickens in the spring.  

 

My husband has informed me that he will be digging a duck pond out back.  He wants Cayugas, some Blue Swedish, and some Black East  India somethingorothers.  *I* think we need to get Guineas too because the ticks have been so bad this year.

 

LOVE this thread!  I am brand new to chickens (almost 3 weeks since I got 2 week old chicks) and thought I was the only one with "chicken math" going on.  My husband and I have been talking about getting chickens for a couple of years.  On 6/2 I went to buy 4-8 chicks from a local breeder....came home with 14 (there were only 14 left and I couldn't bear to leave some of them behind).  Of course, I had wanted NH reds and buff orpingtons.  These were a cross between the two, so of course I began researching about more chickens.  Turns out my chicks couldn't be together...it was like two rival groups trying to kill each other, except they all came from the same place...

After a week of bloody wounds, I got rid of 8 of them and kept 6.  Since I had wanted pure buff orpingtons, I took this as an opportunity to restock the chickens I had just given away.  The next day I got two buff orpingtons.  So although I currently only have 8 chicks, I keep looking at different options to increase my flock.  They're moving to the coop this weekend, so it might be a good time to add more!  :-) 

One way that chicken math gets me is when I start running out of eggs to sell, then I need more chicken of course, then I get more regular customer and then I need more chickens again and then......you see a pattern here? Same goes for meaties, but those only visit the farm for 7 to 8 weeks.

My husband was given 6 chicks for his birthday in March. Then the after easter chick sale happened. Ended up buying 24 chicks. Then the great dog massacre happened and we lost all but 3. I had to replace them so I bought 10 chickens from a breeder. Lost 1 to a storm. Then bought 4 ducks which somehow turned into 10 after the first adorable shipment arrived. So....... 6 + 24 - 27 + 10 - 1 + 4 + 6= 22

Husband only knows about 4 ducks. Waiting to see when he notices the rest after they arrive.

Not too bad considering some of ya'lls chicken math.

So my experience is my husband and I have been thinking about chickens for about a year. We wanted healthy eggs, and we wanted to give chickens "happy chicken lives" because it's the "morally right thing to do" in this day and age of mass production, forced growth and inhumane slaughter. The only thing the chickens had to do was lay eggs - we'd do the rest!  For me, the issue wasn't, and isn't, the quantity of chickens - it's that I kept 22 chicks in my front bedroom for six weeks.  Typical newbies just don't know exactly what that means in terms of wood shavings in your linens, spilled water, chick feed flung to the far corners of the room, vacuuming dust and teeny little feathers out of overhead lights and carpeting, the way the heat lamp tends to heat up the entire house (our house is small). But we smiled after three weeks and said, "Patience is a virtue! This isn't forever." But the smell in that carpet is forever. But no matter - in my evil mind, I'm figuring that I can put my Mother-In-Law in that room when she comes to visit. But I digress.

 

Time to plan, design, buy and build a coop. "What fun! How much can a chicken coop cost? It'll be cheap!" How much trouble can it be for a skilled builder and a happy wife whose only job is to hand hubby the hammer and bring water?  My husband is an excellent builder, and feels if you're going to build something, you should build it right. Upon later reflection, after this "inexpensive" coop was done, we realized we'll start recouping the cost in the year 2023. Then we realize - Oh $#@! the run! So now it will be the year 2046 before we start to eat "free" eggs. 

 

This coop can withstand an 8.2 quake and a class 5 tornado - so it's good to know we'll be safe in the unlikely event of either disaster. Bury it, and we'd have a bomb shelter. But against all laws of logic, space and geometry, it's no match for a raccoon.

 

We looked at the venting on the (perfectly shingled) roof and say, "There is NO WAY a raccoon, fox or possum is smart enough to crawl up the side of the building and squeeze down into the coop." Well, not only can a raccoon do just that, taking one of my adored RIRs, but it can also climb back up the wall from the inside, exiting the same way it got in. That is, of course , after hanging out in the coop long enough to eat the chickens' food (after dining on my little pullet), drink their water and leave a little gastrointestinal waste behind for me to clean up - not to mention traumatizing my flock. Okay - lesson learned. We aren't the first to be so naive.

 

I've learned that if you look at a spot on your coop or run and say to yourself, "Nah - predators can't do THAT" it's bringing down the bad juju's onto your flock. DON'T SAY IT!!!  More unfactored costs: traps, a rifle and ammo. Me, the fluffly little "oh we can't harm any little living thing" city-girl-wuss is now The Terminator, Rambo and Margaret Thatcher all rolled into one. I take no prisoners. I may give a chicken to a predator, but I'll be ****** if they're going to take it. And I make no apologies.

 

So, this isn't just Chicken Math, it's Coop Math - Chicken Math's evil cousin.

Well, I do have to admit....the 5 coops and runs I have cost less than $200.00!!  and that was the chicken wire and screws!  I used pallets and used lumber, that took a lot of work and time to locate...but I refused to buy new.  And my runs/coops may not be predator proff...but I sure know they are predator resistant!!

 

But yes...we have coop math also!!

 

Joe