Chicken Math?

[GoodLuckCharlie!]

I was chuckling at others writing about chicken math...so here's my attempt at it...we started out with 22 eggs, hatched 3 healthy strong chicks, (only 3 due to low humidity levels), bought 4 (2 Barred-Rocks, 2 Rhode Island Reds), gave away the 2 Rhode Island Reds, bought 2 Mottled Java's...the 2 Barred Rocks we had before turns out they're also Mottled Java's...so...3+4-2+2=a happy family of 7...oh no, that's not an even number...now I have to go buy one more...I see why people have fun with chicken math...

I think I have 3 Easter Eggers, 4 Mottled Java's...we'll see

 

[fshinggrl]

Chicken math strikes again!

My version is: bought 16 hatching eggs, 4 hatched. Ordered 9 chicks from local coop. Bought 3 chicks from a different store. Five chicks from coop unfortunately died. I figure 4 of my hatched chicks (100%) are male, so I will be buying 4 more pullets of the breed I want at the store in a couple weeks! (=15)

 

[Pele]

Heeehee, my chicken math is getting out of control.

I started this season with 5 1 day old chicks. 4 gold sex links, 1 barred cochin. 1 of the 'girl' sex links turned male on me, so I called the hatchery (who guarantees gender), and arranged to have a free replacement chick. I decided to add an EE chick to that order so the poor thing wouldn't be raised alone. This brought us up to 7. Then the Cochin turned roo on me, and I had to give both him and the sex link to a nice lady with a farm outside of town. I was down to 5 again. Of course, I had gotten used to having a bunch of chicks, and reaaaaaaaaally wanted a cochin, so I bought 5 Cochin chicks a week ago. Now we're up to 13, and I'm not sure what we'll end up with because I can't keep any of the cochins that turn roo.

Whew!

 

[lebentier]

haha yes! i love chicken math. i lost a hen this spring due to internal laying so i bought 8 straight run chicks. three turned out to be boys so i bought 10 more. 5 of those were boys so i exercised an ENORMOUS amount of self control and only bought 4 more this time. to be continued...

meantime in a sea of chicks

 

[m_shuman]

I am afraid to go to the feed store today! I am afraid chicken math will kick in. When I was there last Friday they had just gotten a shipment of Plymouth Rocks and I know I have at least 1 Roo in my brooder right now that we have to get rid of an I will feel so tempted to replace it with 2 pullets. I keep telling my self to be stong and not look when I go in there!

 

[Noymira]

I love chicken math!

We wanted 4-6 hens for eggs, that would be enough for us our first year.

We ordered 8 chicks just in case one died and we had a roo or two (one RIR chick did die on the way home). I bought a tractor and 2 hens on craigslist because it would be nice to have eggs right away. I'm picking up 3 pullets this weekend from someone who is giving them to me. Our chickens will range in age from 1 week to 12 weeks to 1 year old.

So our chicken math is as follows: 8-1+2+3=12 chickens! I'm still a bit foggy on how all this happened...

 

[Zonoma]

Thought we'd start with 8 or so chickens. Started with 3 Wyandottes, added 6 EEs, went to pick them up and discovered they also had Cuckoo Maran chicks (+2!). Because I was worried about getting them home in time and helped dip all the chicks' beaks and 'perk them up' the guy threw in another EE (+1). Went back to get a bigger waterer and two Dominiques came home with me. Now, tomorrow, we're picking up 2 (ha!!) porcelian d'uccles and I'm fending off my friend's attempts to give me 3 Auraucanas.

3+6+2+1+2+(?) = 14+(?)

How does 8 turn into 16? My husband would like to know.


Of course, I fully intend to add an OE or two before I'm done!

 

[GoodLuckCharlie!]

Before even buying the hatching eggs, I told my husband I would 'only' have 6 chickens...its just 6, totally manageable, not out of control....I bawked at the homepage of BYC about how addicting this is...I can do this, I'm being perfectly logical about all this...so, the doghouse that I was GOING to turn into the chicken's coop...is coming down, and my husband is building a coop by hand...YEAH HUBBIE

and so he asked me, "Before I start building, so, how many, really?"

 

[koakritters]

my chicken math has brought me from 1 chicken to... uhhhh... whatever 9 + 7+ 6+ 17 more eggs in the incubator is!

 

[WalkerH]

Deciding we would start small, with 8. Went to the store, some lady was talking about how 5 out of 6 of her chicks died. Figured we would add in a few for losses, got 15 expecting half would die. Half did not die. Had 13 GLW, two died, and seven CX for killing. Then we were at 20. Started reading online about EEs and just had to have some. Got 6 EEs, one killed by the dog along with a Cornish. Now we are at 24, plus the two Pekin ducklings. Hopefully half of the GLW will turn out to be roos so I can cut down on the flock and replace them with some different breeds in Sept. From 8 to 24-6, oh I love Chicken Math.