Chicken Math

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I started off with my wife saying no chickens. I brought home 5 and hide them in the shed. She went out to the shed to get her gardening tools and found my chicks. We took a trip down to TSC and bought 20 more chicks in various colors. We got sick of buying chicks so we bought an incubator 2 years ago and hatched about 60 chicks. this year we bought another incubator and hatched 60 more. Now we have between 150-180
What do you do with all those roosters? That is what is stopping me from incubating.
 
I’ve been trying to figure out if my husband has a breed preference (so I can buy more ) and he really likes our silkies.

Mostly, my husband just likes keeping me happy, and chickens do that. I do 95% of the chicken duties so he’s happy I’m happy.
Same here I do all the up keep, but he did help build the coop.
 
1 1/2 years ago the family decided that 4 hens would be a cool thing to raise. We'd have fertilizer for our garden, eggs every day, and stewed chicken dinners every 2-3 years when they stopped laying. We realized this meant adding 4 birds once a year to replace stewpot birds so our top limit would be 8 birds. That seemed to be logical chicken math.:thumbsup That was in November of 2017.

We brought home 2 Buff Orpington pullets and 2 Lavender Orpington pullets. Oh my goodness how cute! How funny! I'm in love! By by January we discovered one Lavender was a cockerel. No problem, breeder guarentees gender. I decide to get a little crazy and go for an Easter Egger for cute green eggs. Breeder informs me my Lavender cockerel is worth more than the EE pullet so I can have 2 hens.:woot I get REALLY crazy and go for a Silver Laced Wyandotte with my new EE. Yeah ok, so now I have 5 birds. Not a big deal.

Ummm...uh oh. A month later my other Lavender crowed. :hit I love him! Now what! I call breeder to complain but tell him I'm keeping this one. He informs me that he still owes me a pullet, that's what I paid for. Oh! Another free bird?:ya But I've learned here at BYC that you should never introduce only a single bird. Soooo...I decided on Barred Rocks and paid for the second one. They arrive I think it was April '18. Now I have 6 pullets and a cockerel I never planned for. 7 birds, 5 months of raising chickens.

Summer was glorious! About 1 1/2 + dozen eggs a week! Then fall. Expected egg reduction but still got about 2-3 a day. As spring approached a Rock became a bully. Sadly I rehomed both rocks, can't split up buddies. Now I have 4 hens, oh and rooster. AND 1 EGG A DAY! EE never resumed laying. One Buff went broody. One buff is having softshell problems. Those Rocks were good layers! :confused:what to do? Cull?:smack I can't do that! I'm in love! (Who knew you could love chickens!!) Solution? 4 new pullets! Fun pullets now. An Easter Egger to resume getting green eggs. A Frost White Legbar for some pretty blue eggs! A Black Copper Marans for chocolate colored eggs! And a White Leghorn for a pop of white eggs! Boy have my reasons for chickens changed! And now I have 8 females! Oh, and a rooster. 9 birds. I wanted 4. I have 9. 18 months in and I've more than doubled in spite of giving away 2.

I'm building a big walk in coop now. Hmmmm....big enough for 16 birds, tops. Would only 4 more be so bad? That would only be 12. :oops:

Chicken math. It's very real.:old
 
1 1/2 years ago the family decided that 4 hens would be a cool thing to raise. We'd have fertilizer for our garden, eggs every day, and stewed chicken dinners every 2-3 years when they stopped laying. We realized this meant adding 4 birds once a year to replace stewpot birds so our top limit would be 8 birds. That seemed to be logical chicken math.:thumbsup That was in November of 2017.

We brought home 2 Buff Orpington pullets and 2 Lavender Orpington pullets. Oh my goodness how cute! How funny! I'm in love! By by January we discovered one Lavender was a cockerel. No problem, breeder guarentees gender. I decide to get a little crazy and go for an Easter Egger for cute green eggs. Breeder informs me my Lavender cockerel is worth more than the EE pullet so I can have 2 hens.:woot I get REALLY crazy and go for a Silver Laced Wyandotte with my new EE. Yeah ok, so now I have 5 birds. Not a big deal.

Ummm...uh oh. A month later my other Lavender crowed. :hit I love him! Now what! I call breeder to complain but tell him I'm keeping this one. He informs me that he still owes me a pullet, that's what I paid for. Oh! Another free bird?:ya But I've learned here at BYC that you should never introduce only a single bird. Soooo...I decided on Barred Rocks and paid for the second one. They arrive I think it was April '18. Now I have 6 pullets and a cockerel I never planned for. 7 birds, 5 months of raising chickens.

Summer was glorious! About 1 1/2 + dozen eggs a week! Then fall. Expected egg reduction but still got about 2-3 a day. As spring approached a Rock became a bully. Sadly I rehomed both rocks, can't split up buddies. Now I have 4 hens, oh and rooster. AND 1 EGG A DAY! EE never resumed laying. One Buff went broody. One buff is having softshell problems. Those Rocks were good layers! :confused:what to do? Cull?:smack I can't do that! I'm in love! (Who knew you could love chickens!!) Solution? 4 new pullets! Fun pullets now. An Easter Egger to resume getting green eggs. A Frost White Legbar for some pretty blue eggs! A Black Copper Marans for chocolate colored eggs! And a White Leghorn for a pop of white eggs! Boy have my reasons for chickens changed! And now I have 8 females! Oh, and a rooster. 9 birds. I wanted 4. I have 9. 18 months in and I've more than doubled in spite of giving away 2.

I'm building a big walk in coop now. Hmmmm....big enough for 16 birds, tops. Would only 4 more be so bad? That would only be 12. :oops:

Chicken math. It's very real.:old
I really love how you make sure not to leave out the rooster :gig. My problem is all the chicks for sale post are almost 2 hrs away, even if I sweet talk hubby he would give me hell about wasting gas on a 5.00 chick. :he. I don't see the problem! :idunno
 
I really love how you make sure not to leave out the rooster :gig. My problem is all the chicks for sale post are almost 2 hrs away, even if I sweet talk hubby he would give me hell about wasting gas on a 5.00 chick. :he. I don't see the problem! :idunno
I googled "Chicken hatchery near me" and found my breeder 20 minutes away. "Chicks for sale" might not reveal very local breeders. Couldn't hurt to try.
 

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