Explaining Chicken Math

[SMonroe1990]

My story starts after a friend at work got chickens. She was the enabler. Well after she got hers I had to get some, which took some convincing on my mom's part. I live with my parents and mom never wanted chickens. She saw some scary stuff in the news about large farm industry raised chickens, decided it was okay to get some. I wanted 8 DH talked me into 4. Went to the feed store, minimum is 6. Came home with 6 EEs. One had a cross beak, had to be culled when she wasn't gaining weight. DH told me I could order 3 more to round us out to 8. Well one is kind of looking like a rooster so 3 turned into 4 and I only mentioned the other two I ordered after I had put his card information in. So all in all I ended up with 11. Read something in this thread about not having an odd number, my order for the 6 hasn't shipped yet, so I tried to get him to let me add on one more so we would be at an even 12. Mom decided we were keeping the chick if it turned out to be a roo, so I figure can't have any uneven number. Unfortunately DH said no. Think I can just have the hatchery put another one on my order and tell him it was a packing peanut?

 

[potagergirl]

You can order another one and say "hmm they sent an extra just in case" a lot of hatcheries do that. But if they do add 1 just in case and you order one that will give you 13. Should you end up with 13 which is an uneven number you will no doubt have to order more to fix the problem. Then you still have the summer heat and winter to deal with and should you have any losses it might be wise to order an additional 6 to make sure you still have 6 next year =)
my 2 cents,

 

[SMonroe1990]

I like that idea there.. so maybe I should just order an additional 15 and when the box gets here take the chicks, place them into an unmarked box and fake surprise when I tell him that they just showed up at the door. I think that's believable enough. Maybe he will fall for it. Or I can just show him some of the other stories on here and hope he doesnt think that I will ever be that bad and then he wont care when I want to order one or two extra next time. Who am I kidding though. I think eventually everyone succumbs to it.

 

[angelacez]

Had 6, dog got them. Had to replace them. Decided to order more incase something happens to them. Ordered 15, 4 for my parents. Two died in the first week(of course my parents chicks!) so we decided one of ours is going home with them. Down to 11 but 1 was a roo, of course need to make sure we have a hen to off set that! Head out to the local chicken swap and find a lady that has Ameracaunas and an other with silkies. We decided to get an Ameracauna and a silkie the next week. Went to pick them up today, the lady with the silkie never showed! Found an other guy we liked a lot better and ended up with 2 silkies! Now were from 6 to 14. Oops! Praying one of the silkies isn't a boy! We also now have 5 rabbits. LOL.

 

[Paula Ashley]

Uh oh! I gave messed up! I have 7, an uneven number.

I always talked about having 3 chickens when we moved and was properly set up for them.

Before that happened, on Mothers Day, my husband bought 4 chicks for me. I list one at 7 weeks to my very curious bull dog, Frankie. It was during my husbands watch.

I had settled down with 3. However, the guilt my husband felt resulted in a road trip to bring home 3 chicks to replace my lovely Henrietta. That made 6 chicks too far apart in age to mix.

While my husband was on a trip to our property in Arkansas, the chicken math was not computing and the chicken store was offering Campines that were the same age as my littles for half price. I ran down to get. Just one.

Now I am back at odd number. All sharing the coop and no more fussing.

Sooooo hard to stop adding now. I think I found a solution that will work for me.

I reserved 25 Lavender Orpington eggs in the spring.

Now I have to wait to see how the numbers fall. I'm ok with that. Lol

 

[Paula Ashley]

I just saw the correct way to do the math.

I have 0 chickens.

 

[FabulousFowl]

My story begins with two adorable polish bantams Napoleon and Mr.Bingly ( Napoleon is a girl and we thought she was a boy Oops). after a very long wait i began to get in pashent fo eggs so i desided to sell them and get a difrent breed. i thought about this and soon i really wanted pekin bantams, so we went to the pet shop to have a look (not to buy) but i come home with six adorable feathery pekins three males and three females, two gold partridge, two white and two lavender. my gold P hen went broody afew times but unfortunatly her idea of chicken math was a wrong idea, but i kept begging her to go broody again (still begging)

My roos started fighting and so i sold three my lavender pair and my crazy white roo who attaked me when i went in his cage. but now i am going to get one cookoo and if the cute temptation is strong three.......... oh no not more!!!!! yes i think you guessed right, my new craze... silkies!! we found a breeder not so far away and trying to fight my temptation tryed to come home with a pair but...... i don't think that four is eggxactly two is it? my sis has now got four abandoned chick from our friend and put them with my one silkie Victoria Vicksy for short and she adopted them with pleasure, she hasen't even layed her first egg yet and is only three monthes old. My story isen't so coragus as some but still quite a bit. my story continues but for now i am trying to defend the battle of cutness!! so many cute chicks out there still to be discorered... Oh No!!!

 

[FoxholeFarm]

I did it again...

Had 18 chickens. Sold three roosters. Wanted 5 chicks to get my broody off her nest. Did everything I could to find them locally but no such luck so I had to order... with a 10 chick minimum. I can deal with that... I guess. They sent 12.

 

[SparklingSiegel]

Oh dear! I have been a willing victim of chicken math for quite a while but I'm preparing to move my family (chicken, giant dogs, and cats included) across country soon. I started selling down my hens and slaughtered extra roosters (have some away that we're too pretty and polite to eat) but before I could even count who was left I picked up 5 from a friend of a friend who couldn't keep theirs due to health problems and then about that time my sister asked to incubate 25 of my eggs so her kids could watch a hatch before we move...then of course I need to take those chicks and then we thought it would be fun to hatch a few from my light brahma just in case we have to sell the light brahma rooster if we rent while closing in the next house...and now I have more than when I started paring down! Oops!
Chicken math strikes again!

 

[ChickyChickens]

Oh dear! I have been a willing victim of chicken math for quite a while but I'm preparing to move my family (chicken, giant dogs, and cats included) across country soon. I started selling down my hens and slaughtered extra roosters (have some away that we're too pretty and polite to eat) but before I could even count who was left I picked up 5 from a friend of a friend who couldn't keep theirs due to health problems and then about that time my sister asked to incubate 25 of my eggs so her kids could watch a hatch before we move...then of course I need to take those chicks and then we thought it would be fun to hatch a few from my light brahma just in case we have to sell the light brahma rooster if we rent while closing in the next house...and now I have more than when I started paring down! Oops!
Chicken math strikes again!

Nice one....