Ok, so I am notorious for jumping into projects and just trying my hand to see if I like it. No pressure from me on the outcome, cause hey...... why live your life passing on opportunities that may work out splendidly. If it doesn't... then hey I have learned something. My saying is "I really only failed if I never even tried it". So when my sister got chickens, and it sounded like so much fun I decided, why not try it out. After all... I love eggs! Shortly after that I made my first order of chicks, 21 Buff Brahmas. I lost 7 all in one day due to an anon. attacker which we have luckily never seen since. I lost one to some strange eye condition.... and my favorite (the runt named Rebecca) died to some wasting disease. After that there were the roosters, and then the attack that occured the day the flock started laying. The Pecking Order in FULL FORCE. So then I was down to 4 hens on site, one being tended to by a friend in her flock, and a rooster. The segregated hen looked so sad I had to get her 3 chicks to cheer her up, (which I did not know was theoretically a bad idea). But she loved them and it cheered her up as she became their Momma. So it worked out. Through all that I could not deny that I was bitten at arrival of the first chicks. Being a chicken momma has been so much fun. And mad so much better by BYC, a resource I wish I had known through those first trials and tribulations I didn't know they would be this fun, but I'm glad I am not the kind of person to doubt whether this would all turn out and instead just jump in!
I got my second batch of chicks, 105 of them, in winter and we had a record number of power failures, so no way to keep them warm... Lost 25 of them But I ended up really bonding with the survivors and I'm still chicken crazy, despite that nightmare. Struggling to keep them alive made them really precious to me.
