So, I am a crazy chicken lady. We started out the season by buying a few silkie chicks at the feed store. Then I set some Icelandic, Basque, and Australorp eggs. Then I saw ISA Browns at the feed store and thought, "Wow! ISA Browns are champion layers. I should get a few." A few days later I was at a different feed store and they had four cuckoo Marrans pullets, and I just had to get those because I don't have any hens who lay dark brown eggs. The next week, my eggs hatched. We had a hard hatch but still got 10 Icelandics, 7 Marraduna Basques, and 1 lone Australorp. Finally, I saw some white EEs at the feed store and bought them because my favorite hen is a white EE. I am now the caretaker of a whole house of chicks (47 at last count), some of whom will stay as adults and some of whom will not. We haven't decided yet who stays and who goes because I want to see how everyone feathers out first. All three spare rooms and the basement have brooders set up in them. I have actually already sold/traded quite a few chicks, so numbers are dropping, but are still alarmingly high. The dust is endless, and my hands are chapped from all the washing. I know chicken math is taking over; a new hoop coop (or two) is currently in the works, and the hubby and I spend about 45 minutes in the morning and evening cleaning brooders, washing water founts, and feeding chicks. My mantra is, "Just a couple more weeks until chicks are either outside or sold." Anyone else do anything as crazy as this??? I need moral support here, fellow chicken fans. Share your crazy chick raising stories with me so I can feel better about my own chicken insanity, please!!!
Hang in there. I can't top your 47 chick count, but I will share our indoor brooding story. Our first chickens ever were fall chicks. We got them on October 21 last year, and since they were all the same age. I home school my four children, so I convinced my husband to allow us to set up the brooder in the house. In the big room in the finished basement, to be exact. We constructed the LARGE cardboard and duct tape brooder on site because it was that big. We have a portion of the basement great room that has linoleum and a kitchen-like area that we never use as a kitchen (with a sink), so we we didn't have to worry about sullying the carpet. The kids' home school desks are close by in a windowed alcove. Needless to say, we spent more time cuddling chicks than doing school that first week. Then we figured out how to cuddle chicks WHILE doing school. Those messy little sweethearts ended up dust-bathing every square inch of my basement for 10 whole weeks before we had a coop ready to transfer them to. My daughters (13 and 8) sleep downstairs, and the chicks didn't understand when it was nighttime thanks to the heat bulb in the fish tank with our aquatic turtles. It was fun while it lasted, but we were more than ready when they flew the coop. My husband, who has been very supportive with our chicken-raising endeavors, kindly told me that there would be no more indoor brooding from here on out. Our current dozen chicks are enjoying their brooder in the extra car slot in the garage. I finally started using an old bed sheet to put over their brooder to keep the dust down once they got to a certain age. This helped control the dust, not eliminate it. The most aggravating part of the dust was that it got into every nook and cranny of our printer/copier/fax machine by the school desks. Oy vey. Love the chicks, hate the dust!
Another guy is hooked on fried eggs every morning. "Oh baby, good aunt B good" is what he says when they are cooking.....ha ha.
