We live in Northeast Ohio on a three acre lot.  We built our house here in 2005 and have been slowly working the land and last year (May 2008) bought our first chickens! 

We ordered 15 EE's (got 16) and picked up 2 BO and 3 BA (all pullets) at the local feed store.  We expected a few losses, much to our delight we didn't lose a chick!  We were not prepared to go from 0 to 21 chickens right away and a friend of ours really wanted some chicks so we gave her 7, bringing us down to 14--closer to wear we wanted to be.  We kept our 2BO and 3 BA and had 9 EE's left.  All was going well, the ladies were feathering out nicely and ready to go outside at the end of June.  We were finishing up their run while letting them stay outside during the days. 

One day in late June we came home to find all but 4 of our chickens slaughtered!!!  Only one BO and 3 EE's survived.  It was quite a blow.  Not to be discouraged, we quickly ordered another 15 pullets--this time brown layers--and a rooster to protect the ladies. In our shipment, we also got some broilers.  They ended up giving us an extra Brown layer and an extra broiler that turned out to be not a broiler at all.  That brought our chicken total up to 21 pullets and one rooster. 

They started laying in October and now give us about a dozen eggs a day. We did lose 5 ladies over the winter, a couple due to prolapse, one from a broken neck and two thanks to our neighbor dog (not her fault, our ladies were in "HER yard). So, we have 16 layers and one rooster now.  We let the kids pick out 2 chicks each from TSC (6 total) in early April of 2009.

In May of 2009 we hatched our first chicks!!  100% fertility, 100% hatch!  They are EE/Buckeye mixes.  Check out our chick page for details. 

Safe to say that yes, we are officially addicted!!