Explaining Chicken Math

[MelanieR]

For Easter my mom and dad wanted to buy the kids a pair of chickens. Fine.

They went to the local hatchery the day before Easter and learned they had to have a 6 bird minimum. I said okay. I end up with 4 chickens (Ameraucana or EE's- not sure which) and 2 ducks.

I fell in LOVE with the chickens and so for my 30th birthday in May I told my husband I wanted ONE white polish chicken. Couldn't find any breeders locally so I ordered from the only place I could find that had white polish left for 2012 (McMurray.) There was a 25 minimum so I got 10 White polish, 5 buff polish and 10 red stars. They also sent a free rare breed and a "just in case 1 dies" chick.

So now we're at 2 chickens = 4 chickens. + 1 birthday chicken = 27 chickens which is a grand total of 31 chickens. Had a couple of wildlife loses

as I learned what works and what doesn't. I also managed to give 4 away to our best friends who decided they just had to have some so now I'm "down" to 24.

But now that their personalities are coming out I'm thinking I have too many roos since I ordered straight run and I love them all so I need more hens to balance out my male vs female ratio so I can re-home as few as possible. So I found a breeder locally that has 6-8 week old chickens and hubs said I could get a dozen of those, but then I found a great deal on red star hens (25 for $50!) So 12 is likely going to equal 25. Which would bring my grand total to 49.

Which leads me to my 2 questions...
1. How to I explain this "chicken math" to DH? I fear he might divorce me (or at least make me go get another job to pay for the lumber from the expanding coops I'm making him build)

2. How many chickens do YOU have? Do I have a chicken sickness also or is it just the "Chicken Math" that I've caught?

 

[SarniaTricia]

OMG
I had to laugh at your storey... so much like mine..
Got the chicken idea from visiting a freiend who's neighbour had chickens...
convinced the DH that I needed some.. 3-4 he though would be ok...
He went on a work trip for a week... came home to 11 chickens... (started out with 3 rescued battery hens, one barred rock, one OLD EE, one barred rock/silky chick 5 weeks old... couldn't have just one 5 week old chick.. so got 6 red sexlink 6 week olds from someone local) Found out we were not legal. Got an incubator. moved. hatched.... last count 78 chickens, mostly babies..... still building... still hatching...

"whatever makes you happy darling" only goes so far, so extra roos get processed soon....

 

[marzullol]

Same here..... started out with wanting 6 to 8 hen.. Got my DH on board and he started planning the coop. Got ready to start looking at getting the chicks, and who knew there were so many kinds, then I wanted one of each... not Got ready to place the order, and we got to doing the chicken math, ended up with 42 ordered, got the order and since they shipped 31, had to get the other 12, but.... we got to looking at another breed and then had to order a min of 25, so by the end of the month we will have 67 if all that are orderd arrive alive, and that is not including the "extra"

Kind of excited to get the new orders, but also wondereing where the normally logical person went every time I look at the chickens.

I am now on a "no new animals for 9 months", but I had already commited to getting another dog, and we had been planning on a couple Boar billies.

 

[gertsgal]

Ha. I know what you're feeling. One of my girls went broody so I stuck 6 eggs under her. i had little faith that a baby chick could actually hatch out of an egg so just to hedge my bets I ordered 8 chicks from IP to come on the 21st day of when my eggs might hatch. 6 eggs turned into 9 eggs and on the 21st day they started hatching.( all 9). I hadn't dared tell my DH that I had also ordered eggs so I stayed near the phone and when the post office called I ran out and snuck them under the broody. 2 days later I saw my husband take a second look at the chicks and saw saw the spark of understandind light his eyes. The only thing he said as he walked back toward the house was "You are crazy".

 

[marzullol]

too funny

 

[A.T. Hagan]

The Chicken Math that can be explained is NOT the true Chicken Math!

 

[peepmommy]

My story is quite similar too... I started off ordering 15 hens from my local hatchery. After they got a little older and I learned more, I decided that I wanted a few more different breeds, seeing that I had some pretty standard birds (BR, BSL, and RIR). So, I ordered 15 different breeds (EE, GLW, and Wellies). I lost some of the original flock so my total number should have been 25. Somehow I ended up with 32 (one extra in the last order and broody hen with 12 original eggs, but only 6 survived.) If I end up with a roo in this batch, we will net nature take it's course!

We are on a big farm and DH converted a horse stall into my coop, so plenty of room to grow!!

 

[jrsckn]

I've also become a victim of chicken math. I've wanted chickens for a long time and we just bought our house a year ago so I didn't really think DH would indulge my fantasy lol. We were in TSC in March to get shots for our dogs and he couldn't resist the temptation of eggs on a daily basis so we left TSC with 12 (1.5 week old) straight run barred rocks. I hadn't done any research at that point, beyond TSC's chick breed banner, but I wasn't going to say wait let me research first because I didn't want him to change his mind lol. So we got home and the research began. In 1 week I learned enough to determine we had 4 cockerels which left us with only 8 pullets, oh no! So we went back to TSC and got 6 pullets; 3reds and 3 buff orps; that made 18 total. More research and my daughter wanted EE and DH actually wanted jersey giants. So, we went to the local feed store to place and order; 25 chick minimum but no shipping cost, yea! We figured 5 JG, 5 EE, and we'd fill in the remaining with 15 CX because in 8 weeks they'd be in the freezer and not actually increase our hen population lol. So, we were up to 43 but only 24 would stay, the rest were dinner.

Six weeks later, we go to pick up our chicks and mysteriously they only had CX, no JG or EE. I think they gave our chicks to someone else, but anyway, they offered us all 25 CX or a refund so we took the 25 CX which turned out to be 26; chicken math lol. DH and DD still wanted their chicks and I found a breeder an hour away that had them. So we went and came home with 5 JG, 4 EE, and 1 SLW I couldn't resist. I really wanted to add 2 seabrights and a cayuga duck but he finally put his foot down and said no

So to make a long story short, March 1 = no chickens; now 11 BR, 3 BO, 3 Red, 26 CX, 5 JG, 4 EE, and 1 SLW = 53 CHICKENS!!!!! Chicken math is a fact of life.

 

[ShakeragSusan]

It is hard to explain chicken math to my hubby.

We had a very mild winter so we decided to get guineas to help with the ever abundant ticks. Upon realizing that the phrase "wild as a guinea" has real meaning, we decided to get some chickens to help tame the guineas.
After talking to a farmer friend, I decided on 15 guineas since she said it would be likely that as many as half would die before adulthood.

Ordered my guineas, got to the feed store, picked up my 15 guineas, leaving four lonely keets. Decided they would be worth getting as more insurance that we would have enough guineas to help with the bugs.

I figured a dozen chickens would do, assuming up to half would die before they started laying. Got six straight run BR and 12 EE pullets. Left the feed store with 2 SLW and 2 buff orp pullets, too.
What are we up to? 22 chickens and 19 guineas.

Well, my friend was right, we did lose some. One guinea and 2 chickens. That's it and they are 6 weeks old now.

So, to control ticks, we now have 38 birds and a hen home that took almost a month to build! It's not just chicken math, it's poultry math!

Hubby is not amused. Especially since at last count, best guess, we have at least 5 cockrels including two that were supposed to be pullets.

March 2012- 0 birds

April 2012- 38 noisy, delightful pet birds!

 

[SusanRenee]

Hehe... I am sitting on my hands so I can't do chicken math, if I do any more my hubs is gonna kill me. I started out just wanting hens. I wasn't even done renovating the badly thought out coop that came with our property, an old three side shelter that someone thought putting a tarp on one side in a North Idaho winter would do fine for a chicken????? Anyway, my friend is moving and was illegally rasing two chicks, a Light Buff Brahama pullet and a RIR cockrel. She said if I took the hen, I had to take the cockrel, as they are pretty darn attached to eachother. Ok, I can manage two until I'm done building. Pick them up on Friday. Sat night, I see a craigslist ad for pullets the same age. I convince hubs to let me go get 4 as we wouldn't want a poor hen to rooster ratio when they are grown. There was no saying no to the older gentleman that was selling them to me, so somehow 4 became 6, and as I'm leaving he convinces me that I should buy 3 of his laying hens so I have eggs in the meantime until the little ones were grown. So 4 became 9 as I left. Last Monday, I see another Craigslist ad for two Ameraucana hens that a local breeder was selling as they didn't quite fit her breeding program. So I go to check them out and I really did want pretty blue eggs... And she shows me the rooster that she also needs a home for... Note quite the right color white, he's got a bit of silvery tan to him. Frankly, I think that he's gorgeous, and I can't let someone that handsome be dinner??? So we went home with three. I'm at 14 and I was supposed to be at 6 right now. I've also been BANNED from Craigslist. June 1 = 0 June 18 = 14

In the meantime, since June 1 I've also gotten 4 Angora Goats and a Llama. Let's just call it Farm Math, huh??

Here's Moe the rooster and his ladies Snow and Golden Feathers, with a few of the others in the background... Pretty on the chair, far back are the first two Houdini and Lucy, middle are Hinky the crossbeak and Topaz, and black to the right is either Bridget or Noisy....