It all started a few years ago when my wife's brother got a chick for his son on Easter. As we all know, the chick got big and needed somewhere to sleep and eat. Since we had a little property, we took the chick and the hobby started. The wife didn't like the idea of one chick being by itself all the time so we had to get a few more. Since then we've kept between 6 and 9 of them pretty much all the time.

With the exception of this last winter... we had a coyote get one, a neighbors dog (both while out free ranging), some old age took a couple then the next thing you know we were down to 1 again. Then this spring we got 4 more, then two weeks later she decided that we needed 4 more. So now we're back at 9 again. Nine is kind of an odd number, but I don't want to go into double digits, so I told the wife we could only have 9.

I've redesigned the coop, built new roosts and nesting boxes and for the first time, started using white savings on the floor. Love them so far as they make cleanup a breeze. Also built some new watering systems using the thread in chicken nipples. They seem to be working pretty good too. Although I am nervous that the chickens don't drink enough water. But they all seem to be doing fine, so I'm probably worrying about nothing.

At this time we have 4 Plymouth Rock, 1 Golden Sexlink, 2 Buff Orpington and 2 Amercauna.