@AlHawk , nice, love your guts. My wife & I both grew up from the city. Wife was born in Ohio grew up in Florida, Hawaii & Australia. We were both never was around chickens.
Couple of springs ago after work I dropped by a store to pick up kitty food for our kids cat. I happened to checked what was chirping in the store. Lo & behold I got 10 fuzz balls in this cute box "for my kids" to my wife's "disgust" & surprise.
Fast forward few months later, We all got the taste of great eggs, so did our friends and coworkers (demand was greater than supply).
The following spring, I convinced her we need couple more chicks for eggs after all I built this chicken mansion. I picked up 2 Rhode Islands & 2 Barred rocks, couple weeks later I picked up 6 more RIRs, while few weeks before, I mentioned to a random customer in the store I wish I got those chocolate dark eggs from Black Copper Marans but don't know where to get them. She took pity on my boyish look
like I wanted to have my first puppy but couldn't. She mentioned that she has a friend that knows a breeder couple of hours away, got my cell # and parted. After I had added 10 in total, I had the text asking how many BCMs do I want? The random customer is 2 hours away and picking up some rare chicks, and they do have some Copper Marans that hatched 5 days prior with good lineage, mind you pricey and not sexed- I might get all roosters or all hens. I texted my wife and told her without mentioning the cost and we agreed to have 4 - one turned out roo few months later and been rehomed.
This year (January) I was looking @poultry catalog online and told my lovely wife we need BLUE or GREEN eggs don't you think? We only have whites, brown, pink and chocolate & speckled colors. Besides our 1st batch of hens are entering 2nd year of laying went to a molt last fall and some still molting. How can she say no to my boyish angelic face
. Little that she knows I have to order a minimum of 15 to keep them warm for shipping, I left that details out since she also agreed we need 2 more of white leghorns when the local store gets them.
So in that batch I ordered Araucana, Ameraucana, Easter Eggers, Black Australorps, Black sex links, & New Hampshires. 3 weeks later after the mail delivery, I picked up 2 leghorns from the store but
theres 6 minimum purchase, so I added 2 Easter Eggers, 1 Speckled Sussex & 1 Plymouth Barred rocks. Grand total = in my fuzzy math there's only 20.