Well I used to have over 100 chickens plus who knows how many chicks at any one given time. It could take me easily 45+ minutes just to feed and water, not including any doctoring or special care any of them might need.
It had turned into a job instead of just being a relaxing hobby. So I made the decision to only keep my absolute favorites and gave the rest to my neighbor who also has chickens.
I have to do it in stages. I sorted through everybody once and got most of them gone. After about a week I was able to narrow it down further to 18 full grown chickens plus 3 chicks and 2 pullets. I will probably narrow it down further this week until I have decided on few enough chickens to comfortably live in a 4x8 coop with 12x8 attached run with supervised free range time.
After this last downsize I started filling feeders and waterers and doing other duties and was completely done in 10 minutes! Wow that was quick! I could hardly believe it. I just knew there had to be something I was forgetting because this was rediculous. lol.
As much as I loved having a large number of chickens, it sure is nice to be able to get the dirty stuff done quickly and have more time to spend time with them and actually get to know each chicken individually.
Have any of you felt the shock of downsizing so drastically? lol
It had turned into a job instead of just being a relaxing hobby. So I made the decision to only keep my absolute favorites and gave the rest to my neighbor who also has chickens.
I have to do it in stages. I sorted through everybody once and got most of them gone. After about a week I was able to narrow it down further to 18 full grown chickens plus 3 chicks and 2 pullets. I will probably narrow it down further this week until I have decided on few enough chickens to comfortably live in a 4x8 coop with 12x8 attached run with supervised free range time.
After this last downsize I started filling feeders and waterers and doing other duties and was completely done in 10 minutes! Wow that was quick! I could hardly believe it. I just knew there had to be something I was forgetting because this was rediculous. lol.
As much as I loved having a large number of chickens, it sure is nice to be able to get the dirty stuff done quickly and have more time to spend time with them and actually get to know each chicken individually.
Have any of you felt the shock of downsizing so drastically? lol
