Explaining Chicken Math

[BLT79]

Duck math. Lost a duck, dh wants to go get our lonely male duck a female right away. Go to farm we got him from and come home with 3! A breeding pair and a female! Now he wants to try to incubate duck eggs! Guess I better start my research! Lol

 

[kadoer12]

lol. I love this thread. I only read the first page, but I'm sure each page has at least three to five amusing stories.

I've concluded that chicken math is the event of wondering how 4 chickies became 50 lol.

Our family was no different.

Decided to get chickens, went to TSC and picked up 6 red pullets and 6 pullets. brought them home. couple weeks later mom went there for something and saw that they had different birds picked up 6 pekins and a couple more pullets. came home to my scrutinizing, realized she needed a heat lamp. got there and what do you know there are two silkies!. grab them and four other birds, cuz you need six although you just bought a bunch a couple hours ago. we ended up with 30 chickens and a few ducks which we free ranged on our property. Well untill we lost all but 4 hens ( the two silkies ended up being roos one drowned in the newly filled horse trough during the winter(we have it in cased to limit freezing) during it's fight with the other(who had become fox food). the last roo from that bunch unfortunately decided to pick a fight with my three year old brother and ended up being a football. didn't exactly recovered from it. He fought less and usually din't bother anyone was a bit rough on the girls. silkies= great protectors and lovers, were more aggresive toward us.)

So this year we ordered 15 birds from mcmurray, some turkens, buff orphingtons, easter eggers, black jersey giants, barred plymouth rocks, and the free silver laced polish. ended up being 17 chicks. plus the free girls equals 21.bought a few breeding pairs. my three dorking girls. more buff orphingtons, some barnyard mixes and hatching eggs that are currently growing up. We have at least 60 chickens plus the ducks, turkeys, guineas, and pheasants brings us to over 80 birds.(I don't feel like calculating an exact number at this hour lol.)

 

[NessaNonsense]

Chicken math is kind of scary now that I've read this thread xD Cause it seems 1 becomes 10+
In the beginning I really didn't want to get chickens and I thought my parents wouldn't allow it, as I still live with them (just a wee baby over here o.o) and my dad always said he didn't want any more animals.

At the time I had a friend who wanted to buy some chickens. She only wanted two, so we went to TSC to see what they had. Turned out there was a minimum of 6. I spotted the golden comets and realized that I did want chickens. So my friend and I decided to buy three each, she would raise all six together until the time for mine to move out. Called my parents, they were okay with three chicks. Obviously I wanted the golden comets and they were of course pullets. My friend however decided she wanted some straight run (not sure what breed) and the birds were far too big to mix with the comets who were really tiny. So I got some regular white pullets (didn't pay attention to breeds, which I know is stupid) that were similar in size. end of story, right? Nope.

Come a few weeks later, I've nearly got my coop completed (taking my time with it because I'm not exactly a good carpenter). Friend calls me up says she doesn't think she can take care of her three, I didn't understand why but I said I would take them since the coop was big enough for six chickens max. So 3 turned into 6. Turned out the 3 were boys and that's why she didn't want them =.= That was in April. I still honestly wanted the golden comets. I went to buy feed and ended up bringing six of them home, of which my dad was not pleased with. Due to the coop being too small, I had to recently build a second coop. So 6 turned into 12, with two of them most likely being either swapped or sent to "freezer camp", of which I dread as they have names and are precious to me T ^T Now the first batch is 12 weeks old and the second is about 5-6 weeks old. My mom seems to have caught chicken fever and is seriously thinking of building a third coop with bantams in mind.
It's contagious I tell you.

 

[Bethel3330]

It is!!

 

[angelacez]

LOL. Love this post. We had only wanted 4 hens, but had to buy 6. Ended up with a rooster we thought we didn't want. We ended up loving him! After the incident with a dog we were down to one pullet. :'( We decided to order more, my parents wanted in this time. They only wanted 5 tops. Come to find out 15 was the cheaper shipping number. So we ordered 10, one being a roo. If we end up with 2 or more roosters it will be sad, since 1 is pushing it here with our neighbors so close. I already have a few other breeds I'd love to buy and our 10 babies haven't even shown up yet!!! Oh goodness. Our math goes intentional 4 +2 for our area= 6, dog attack-5=1 +10(hopefully)= 11 from my original 4 wanted. Yep they multiply! I want a Wyandotte and maybe a RIR and a BO. Don't tell hubby! He's already planning on breeding. Lol.

 

[ChickyChickens]

Chicken Math......Chicken math.....chicken math...................... I wanted 5 hens and a rooster when I was young so my dad built me a coop and we got them from our neighbours! The 5 hens where leghorns and the roo was a barnyard mutt but he was gorgeous! Later when I was in a pet shop I saw a pair of adorable bantams and got them! That =8 chickens! At one stage all my hens went broody (eggsept for the bantam) After they had hatched out their chicks and raised them ot of 39 chicks 12 were roosters! So I swapped these 12 roo's for 24 hens! That = 59 chickens!! After that I just left the chickens alone and now they have become more then 120! (don't want to count!!!!!!!!!!!!)
My chickens free range so I don't have a problem with roosters! Luckily for some reasons my hens never get more then a quarter of their clutch as roosters! At the moment I have 17 roosters! My hens are all fine and the roos aren't hurting them and bothering them!
So I'm cool and I'm just waiting for MORE..........CHICKEN MATH!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

 

[estamets]

Chicken math kicked in! We were doing our egg math (4 hens at 4 eggs per week average = 16 eggs per week), and the husband said, "we might need to get two more." Less than 24 hours later we were driving home with Phoebe, a White Rock, and Lydia, a Barred Rock.

Thanks, chicken math!

 

[Sjisty]

Chicken math caught up - We just down-sized by rehoming 18 chickens last week, but other than less noise with 3 roosters gone, you can't really tell a difference!

 

[Northie]

Negative chicken math sucks, we've lost a few.

 

[sepaditty1]

I lost a few, too. For every one I lose I replace it with 3 more.