Have you ever wondered "Where did all these chickens come from?!?!"

[RareBreedFancier]

Quote:
Easy! In with the banties, those two must be lonely, they need Silkie friends!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I never give an exact number when I am asked that question. They come and go too fast. My wife quit asking long ago. She now measures our flock numbers by the feed bill.

The other day as I was buying yet more gamebird starter and grousing about it since I have to go out of my way to the one feed store that reliably carries it I started adding in my head and came to the stunning realization that I had fifty turkeys! OK, those are mostly poults of varying ages, but still they have to be fed and it adds up! Off to the swaps I go!

This time of year I begin to dream about empty brooders and grow-out pens. Of course along about December I begin to dream about how many eggs I'm going to put in the box come spring!

 

[SierraView]

On 4th July I was at my parents and was asked how many chickens I have. I quickly answered 11 because that's how many eggs I got that day. My daughter says are you sure its only that many? I said yeah because I got 11 eggs she believed me. I have 5 hens raising babies so they didn't give a egg so didn't count. Roosters didn't count and lots of chicks didn't count.

 

[Miyashi]

When people ask me how many I have, I have to count on my fingers and say each birds name....
This is when they stop me and make me angry because I lose count...but they just have to say "Wait, wait, wait.....they all have names?"

 

[gryeyes]

I know exactly where all my chickens came from. That's "all," collectively. Either I bought them as chicks, a few somebodies each gave me one, I incubated and hatched several bunches of them, and broody hens hatched the rest of 'em. Numbers? Uhhhhhh.....

Last night, as I was feeding SOME of them treats (the ones which had gravitated to the front yard), I noticed I have quite a few REALLY PRETTY chickens. I mean, so many of them are cross-breeds, but I have a LOT of really good looking chickens. And must admit I have not named quite a few of them.... I usually wait until they demonstrate individuality so their names "come to me" but I have apparently been lax of late.

...and 25 more chicks just arrived today, being fostered by my good friends HHandbasket and Farmer Lew until I get moved to my new home. There's already 20 chicks, a gosling (Kate), and a nearly mature Porcelain D'Uccle (Gwenevere) at the new property.

 

[Karrie13]

For sure! My husband never even asks how many we have anymore and if someone asks me when he is around I just evade the question (he doesn't care for the birds)... right now it is 96 (just sold two last night, counting ducks). By winter time I will get down to less than half that number. I just enjoy them except there is way to much crowing going on right now.

 

[Avalon1984]

The discrepancies of what our spouses think vs. reality can be startling:

Husband’s reality: we have 25 chickens

Real reality: we have 92 chickens

 

[LittlenRedHen782]

Last weekend my dad ventured out to the chicken yard and asked how many did I have. I did not give him an answer, 'cause I'm not completely sure

I think there are 45 and he guessed 50. Does that mean I need to go get five more?

 

[RareBreedFancier]

Sorry I've missed updates on my own thread.

Yes LittleRedHen, I do belive that means you need (at least) 5 more.

Avalon, DH lives in a similar world here, he knows there are 'quite a few' chickens here but if he knew the true number (which has gone up considerably) he'd have heart failure!

 

[missydcpc]

I don't even have mine yet, and the number has gone up considerably! When we started this conversation we agreed on 8. I have 24 on order and 6 more that I still need to find! (at least)