Leitirmhor
In the Brooder
- May 11, 2021
- 13
- 36
- 44
Hello! My family is new to chickens (got them in January), and to be honest, it was completely by accident. With a background in ag, most of my experience with chickens was either in mass production or research, so I was not fond of the beasts. Fast forward to a few months ago, and a friend of mine who had chickens was going through a rough patch with her partner and ended up moving out. We live on a 200 acre cow/calf operation, with a couple of small, empty outbuildings, so I offered to take her chickens and goats until she could find a more permanent solution. We quickly retrofitted so the chickens could live here, and at first I was super resistant to the idea of having chickens, but the longer they were here, the more I came to appreciate them. Who knew that I would like chickens so much?! My 7yo daughter has proclaimed herself a crazy chicken lady and drug me right along with her.
We started discussing getting some birds of our own once my friend’s were gone, but with weeks stretching into months, and still no sign of them leaving, we decided not to wait. So we are now growing 14 Orpington chicks and incubating another 10 hatching eggs with the plan to process our own freezer birds with the surplus roosters. I spend way more time fussing over the creatures than I thought possible, and have to constantly remind myself that we will be eating half of them in the future. In my defense, I get the same with the calves, even after 15 years. lol!
We also have a herd of purebred Simmental cows and a herd of commercial cows, 4 horses and we breed Catahoula Leopard Dogs that we use to move and pen our cattle and hunt small game with.
I am a researcher by nature, and have been using BYC a bunch to read and learn about this new species that we have found ourselves diving into. I stumbled into it when doing google searches, and found it to be one of my favourite spots to learn about different aspects of chickens! Thank you all so much for sharing your expertise!
Carlye from Ontario
We started discussing getting some birds of our own once my friend’s were gone, but with weeks stretching into months, and still no sign of them leaving, we decided not to wait. So we are now growing 14 Orpington chicks and incubating another 10 hatching eggs with the plan to process our own freezer birds with the surplus roosters. I spend way more time fussing over the creatures than I thought possible, and have to constantly remind myself that we will be eating half of them in the future. In my defense, I get the same with the calves, even after 15 years. lol!
We also have a herd of purebred Simmental cows and a herd of commercial cows, 4 horses and we breed Catahoula Leopard Dogs that we use to move and pen our cattle and hunt small game with.
I am a researcher by nature, and have been using BYC a bunch to read and learn about this new species that we have found ourselves diving into. I stumbled into it when doing google searches, and found it to be one of my favourite spots to learn about different aspects of chickens! Thank you all so much for sharing your expertise!
Carlye from Ontario
Hello Carlye and welcome to BYC, You found an Awesome poultry Forum to be a part of with many great knowledgeable members who are more then willing to jump in and help you with any questions you may have. 
Glad you joined.
