Welcome to our chicken page....
We are first time chicken owners on an acre lot in Minnesota. I was fortunate to move to this community 2 years ago. My kids were country kids in the city. "Wanna be" farmers in a way. With a hopeful heart, I keep buying the lottery tickets
!! The kids have been involved with 4H for a couple of years ago. My oldest last year leased an Angus hefer - boy did I have to learn alot! Especially since I did chores and training the two weeks she left right before the fair. I survived that though. So when my youngest wanted an animal project this year I said it had to be something we would benefit from and I could easily work with. So my story begins...
In the fall - I bought a shed from a local guy and retrofitted for a chicken coop. We then adopted 4 bantees in Sept. I thought they were hens but it was 2 roos and 2 hens. We loved them no matter what and named them Bonnie & Clyde and Romeo and Juliet. At this point all I wanted was eggs. Well, they had been off mash so we started feeding them and ran lights for 16 hours and by late November I had my first bantee eggs. Small but the DH was really excited since finally we were seeing some benefits despite the $$!
My DH sells marine products and was at a hardware store show when I met the people from Welp. After much research, and a joint aggreement from the DH and my 6th grader we ordered. These are my daughter's 4H project and from a very informative extension class - I new we would be taking egg layers as anything I had to help her with was going to give back to me!! Fresh eggs - yum!!! Well as the timing goes - the fair is in July so counting back & with what I learned about time to laying we had to order in February. So we received our chickens from Welp on February 17. The DH got them from the post office at 6 am & before school, my 6th grader and he dipped beaks and all looked good. I had a hard time staying at work that day but I am a teacher so I just incorporated the excitement into my science class.
To start this adventure, we picked up a dryer & dishwasher box from our local appliance store. Thanks to much reading (BYC thanks), we had a good brooder set up. Minnesota was cold though so the chickens got the garage!
We only lost one - so 24 it has been...
We are first time chicken owners on an acre lot in Minnesota. I was fortunate to move to this community 2 years ago. My kids were country kids in the city. "Wanna be" farmers in a way. With a hopeful heart, I keep buying the lottery tickets
In the fall - I bought a shed from a local guy and retrofitted for a chicken coop. We then adopted 4 bantees in Sept. I thought they were hens but it was 2 roos and 2 hens. We loved them no matter what and named them Bonnie & Clyde and Romeo and Juliet. At this point all I wanted was eggs. Well, they had been off mash so we started feeding them and ran lights for 16 hours and by late November I had my first bantee eggs. Small but the DH was really excited since finally we were seeing some benefits despite the $$!
My DH sells marine products and was at a hardware store show when I met the people from Welp. After much research, and a joint aggreement from the DH and my 6th grader we ordered. These are my daughter's 4H project and from a very informative extension class - I new we would be taking egg layers as anything I had to help her with was going to give back to me!! Fresh eggs - yum!!! Well as the timing goes - the fair is in July so counting back & with what I learned about time to laying we had to order in February. So we received our chickens from Welp on February 17. The DH got them from the post office at 6 am & before school, my 6th grader and he dipped beaks and all looked good. I had a hard time staying at work that day but I am a teacher so I just incorporated the excitement into my science class.
To start this adventure, we picked up a dryer & dishwasher box from our local appliance store. Thanks to much reading (BYC thanks), we had a good brooder set up. Minnesota was cold though so the chickens got the garage!
We only lost one - so 24 it has been...
