How did you find your way in the chicken world?

[AllChookUp]

We'd talked about having chickens for years. Then when my cousin had some and offered to give me a few adults as starts, I decided to jump in and build a coop/run. Plus, I wanted to give something to my granddaughter that would give her the experience of raising and caring for animals.

Then I did some research on the internet, and voila - I found the BYC!
So glad I did.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

Ordered a bunch from the "chich days" at the local feed store. Boy did I go into this blind !! And no, I was sober !! I love my chickens. I already have two large parrots and thought, what the heck, chickens can not be that much different. WRONG.

 

[Tiramisu]

I was watching a rerun episode of Sara Snow, and she interviewed a family that lived in New York who had 21-25 chickens. I figured if someone in NY with a tiny back yard could keep as many chickens as they wanted, then we could do it, I also thought of Iowa as a farm type state and our city is not that big-I have seen two places with chickens and heard of another near by that had some grandfathered in. Unfortunately they are not allowed, but I got some anyway-and just got my first eggs, my australorp just layed her 4th one last night. I would like to try and get the ordinance changed this winter.

 

[arabookworm]

well, my parents were born in egypt, and both of them had chickens at some point growing up, and my dad was really into raising pigeons. they never thought about keeping chickens until about a month ago when some family friends came back from a visit to egypt and decided to raise their own chickens. my dad, who is a doctor specializing in nutrition, thought it would be a great way to get eggs and chicken that we would know exactly what went into them.
my sister and I instantly saw the potential for pets, which we can't have because of various allergies of different family members, and we got in on the idea right away.
and our 16 eggs should be shipped on monday!!!!!

 

[Wildsky]

I saw an ad on craigslist - someone who couldn't keep their three hens.

The deal fell through - I never did get those three - but the idea stuck.

 

[EmptyNest]

It all started when I was left with an "empty nest" after 28 years.

My sons were grown and gone and I needed a hobby to fill the hours. I started w/some hatchery chicks, which lead to an incubator and buying eggs off of this site and ebay and then another incubator and hatching my own eggs.

93 chickens later (with 22 more in the incubator) I'm addicted.

 

[Morning Dove]

I quit my job at a poultry pharmaceutical company to have a baby, and I decided to raise some chickens because the cost of food was rising so much. I used to work with industrial incubators, the kind that holds thousands of eggs on one cart... I figure after two years of that, I should be able to hatch a few chicks! I never knew how cool chickens were until I started raising them, and I'm glad to be out of that particular business. I also worked two year as a vet assistant.

Dove

 

[snowydiamonds]

I saw a handwritten notice on the bulletin board in a local grocery store: Rhode Island Reds, have too many...waited 2weeks, waited another, thought someone must've taken them all by now so I'll just stop by to make sure and only LOOK...no one had called or stopped by. I still only wanted to look. I stopped by, I ran home to grab a dog airline crate, drove like a crazy woman with a big smile and big eyes back, he filled up the crate with 10 hens and grabbed each one by the legs/feet, hung them upside down and stuffed them in there...they all moaned and cried like individual women going to their deaths and leaving their loved ones behind...

that did it right there! I swore I'd never grab 'em and hang 'em upside down, I'd hold them in my arms and hold their toes like we were holding hands and I'd talk to them...he said, the man giving them away, said: "They're NOT PETS now! They're NOT PETS!"

I had no where to put them and luckily he sold me a 50# bag of feed so into my 1996 Chevy Blazer they went Windows all around, I put a bunch of sand and grass all over the seats and floors...boy was my 25 year old son mad at me! He couldn't believe I did that to my car! I drove the truck with the stick shift instead.

My neighbors gave me a perfect old wooden floorless shed for the winter with the agreement it must be moved the following Spring or Summer but we shared those 8 RIR hens all winter and fell in love! I was so happy to get those original 10 that I gave two of them to another friend the first few days I'd got them.

We share the 60-100 chickens, meat and egg layers, I share my goose eggs and will share the duck eggs until they sit on them, we share in this adventure, her hubby, she and I, and we're great neighbors and friends, sharing life and fishing and chicken adventures, even butchering now

I had many chain link fence panels for my dogs but the dogs had to give them up so the birds could be contained...and the geese are better guards than the dogs, first alerters...so the geese now have the dogs trained Then people began giving their flock to me...and I am so glad I rescued the school hatch as those banties are so wonderful! I'll always have birds now...sold the Chevy for $100.00 and someone else cleaned it back up and its back on the road again, wonder how it smells when the heater warms it up in there???

 

[Chicabee19]

My Naturopath and I were discussing my extremely limited diet. He said 'eggs are your food'. So I found someone local to buy free-range eggs from. Then she stopped selling eggs! You can guess the rest... right?

 

[snowydiamonds]

OH, and I'd just finished two classes: Animal Nutrition and Husbandry