Explaining Chicken Math

[cknnewbie]

Several incubators and 65 chicks later, this man (DH) has the nerve to accuse me of having a "chicken problem". Yes, the incubators are somewhat full of prospective chicks but I am not the one walking around with half grown chicks on my shoulder saying; "Aye Mate, Polly here wants a cracker."

live covertly in "chicken sin".

This made my laugh out loud!

 

[annewandering]

I FINALLY got some this weekend!!! 1 white hen and 1 black hen along with 1 white silkie hen, 1 yellow silkie hen, and a splash rooster and a frizzle baby! Omg they're all absolutely gorgeous!!!

A frizzle? is it a banty or a standard? I want a frizzled cochin so bad! You need to post photos!

 

[BScott03]

A frizzle? is it a banty or a standard? I want  a frizzled cochin so bad! You need to post photos!

It's a banty!! I'm completely in LOVE tomorrow I will upload some pics from my phone to my laptop and post them! They're sweethearts! Everyone definitely needs some! I thought I'd be done after I got these girls and 1 guy, but now I just want more chickens! Lol

 

[BullChick]

it is not my fault! Two hens have gone broody!

 

[Chickens R Us]

I think my DH who wanted nothing to do with chickens is becoming a victim of chicken math. We started out with 12 last year culled - 2 roosters =10, got + 8 chicks at the local TSC =18 then my daughter found BA at another TSC, I had to have some of those so + 6 = 24 we went on short vacation my daughter found some GLW while we were gone did not tell my DH about these + 6 = 30. He was looking in the brooder one day and asked why some were so much smaller I told him it was a different breed. ( Think I'm busted at this point

) Then he said looks like we have 6 roosters better get 6 or 12 more so we have enough hens.( YES!!!HAHAHA!!!

) Going to purchase more today have to start a second brooder. AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS CHICKEN MATH

Well time for an update, a lot has happened in the last few months. I got ten more chicks(RSL,JG,GLW, LH) , they were all suppose to be pullets but at least three turned into roosters.

30+10=40. Once we saw we had a bunch more roos we started to scour craigslist in the hope of finding a fellow chicken enthusiast in our area and we found a lovely women who had all kind of breeds that are pretty rare in our area. We decided to just get 9 chicks. Some SLW, EE, LB, and two more BA cause 4 of my six were roos. But we are already planning on getting some Lavender Orpingtons, Corination Sussex, and some Blue Laced Red Wyandottes from her next year!

So 40+9=49. Next with just a little bit of plotting, my daughter talked my husband into getting me an incubator as a "surprise" birthday present. I wasn't going to incubate this year but my daughter talked me into it. You know, just to make sure it work!

This was my first time incubating and I wasn't expecting very good results and had several complications but out of 11 eggs nine hatched! Sadly one died with in a day but now a week later 8 are still alive. To see more about my hatch you can check out :https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/785769/first-time-incubator. So continuing on, we had a lot, a lot, A LOT!!! of roosters this year. I didn't want to raise all of them to weight to butcher so I talked to a friend at work whose mom has a farm and I sold 14 of the roosters to her today. I have also started work on a new coop and run that is twice as big as my other coop. 8'x16'. So here is my chicken math so far: Wanted 6: 12-2+8+6+6+10+9+9-1-14= 43! I still have an 18 month old rooster, 3- 4 month old cockerels, and at least two of my baby chicks are males.
I really don't want to have more then 2 roosters. So a few more with have to go come fall. I have at least 6 roos, 30 hens, and 7 unknown. I just have soooo many people buying eggs from me that I just have to keep getting more chickens to keep up with demand!

 

[what did I do]

Ok, Ok, Ok... We went to the store for 15 chicks, came home with 60, 35 hens and 25 meaties and some new farm equipment. Everything was good. We loved the chicks. That was fine for that year. The next spring rolls around and I think an incubator would teach the kids a lot. One incubator and the neighbors barred rock eggs. All went well with the hatches and people bought the chicks. We needed chicks for the fair to sell and we sold to many so we had to hatch more. Once we hatched 3 incubators full of barred rock chicks we decided to branch out from there. We went on vacation to Calif and picked up Trader Joe's fertile eggs. We only had 7 of the TJ eggs hatch but that's not bad considering what they went through to get here. Then we had a broody. She hatched some of the eggs.from the barred rock rooster, my aviator pic.

We were going into winter with way to many chickens so we sold some. We made good money off the older pullets. We kept 60ish chickens and 2 roosters. This year we have hatched one incubator of eggs from our own hens. One rooster wasn't doing his job so we had a number of clear eggs. We ended up with 20 chicks but we went to town and bought 2 from Big R and 2 bantams from another store - We had chicks at home that is why they sold us so few chicks. We wanted a Buff Orpington Rooster and it looks like we got one. We ordered chicks from a hatchery this week, Just A Few, ya know, 65 hens - What Did I Do - LOL. We need to re-home the older hens this fall. But since we will have a buff orpington rooster we will have to keep the buff orpington hens even if they are older. We ordered white orpington chicks.

So, by tomorrow we will have 60 older hens, 24 older chicks, 6, 3 week old chicks, and 69 new chicks - they are sending 4 special ones for free. That is just 170 chicks/chickens (you always round up with chickens) I'm trying to decide if we should hatch another bator full of eggs. Those darn chicks are just so cute. The thing is, you can't count the ones that aren't laying eggs and I'm only getting 40 eggs a day. That means I only have 40 chickens.

Time for an update. We are fighting a skunk and a racoon we lost one chicken so far.

We have 2 broody hens, yea!! All the chicks are doing well. I feel so lucky that all the shipped chicks lived.

 

[wildflowerrun]

My 31 turned into 24 when I found 7 boys lurking among my Anconas and Delawares. So they had to go to auction.

The goal all along (well.... all along since April) was to keep about 20 girls and 2 boys. Problem is my 5 olive egger ladies turned out to be 4 roosters and 1 lady. So that puts me down at 20 girls, and the Ameraucanas are still too young to sex!

Fast-forward to yesterday. I still have 4 roosters to "get rid of" (but two of them are so pretty!), but I was going to replace them with.... something. I was considering polish or silkies for fun, but we had a coop misfortune and started to look at chicks instead, thinking we could house them inside until the coop was fixed. And then I found my Wheaten Ameraucanas and it was confirmed we were getting chicks. But they were straight-run so we went ahead and bought 5 of those.

But then we won a chicken coop! and my friend had said earlier, "You know, if you win this coop, I want to get a chicken to keep at your house." So her and I went on a mission to get some chicks roughly the same age as my new Wheaten Ameraucanas and settled on 4 Black Copper Marans. But, you know, 3 of those shouldn't count since they're technically hers, they're just spending the night at my house.

And then to make matters worse, I bought an incubator and 9 hatching eggs (trying to secure a few more in the next few days). So who knows what will hatch out of that. But they haven't hatched, so they also don't count.

That puts me at 31 - 7 boys + 5 chicks + 4 chicks = 33. But I know I'm getting rid of 4, so that's 29. And then those chicks won't all grow up to be ladies, so let's subtract 4, which makes 25. And some of those Ameraucanas still need sexing, and I'm thinking 3 boys (keeping 2). So that puts me at 24 total, even better than the perfect number, right?

If I do get these hatching eggs, I have a feeling I'm going to have to find new homes for some of my original flock....

 

[CyndiChick]

I am going to have an outbreak of chicken math... Lost one of our goldlaced cochin 5 week old pullets, so I am going to order some orpingtons At least 3 hens and a roo!
I am getting to where I can predict a chicken math attack now!

 

[cknnewbie]

I am going to have an outbreak of chicken math... Lost one of our goldlaced cochin 5 week old pullets, so I am going to order some orpingtons

At least 3 hens and a roo!
I am getting to where I can predict a chicken math attack now!

 

[kbh82310]

Well it got me again! I'm adding 2 more chicks to my order that is sup to only be 4 chicks. That makes 8 total now and I still have a lil less than 2 months till they ship. So god knows how many it's gonna end up being by the time they ship. Oh and I also added 3 ducks and REALLY wanna add another, but that doesn't count cause they are ducks right?!