How did this happen!

[Celtic Chick]

Quote:
Oooohhhh........ I wish I had your will-power.
Hubby will not let me go there by myself anymore.

 

[hencrazy]

The lady at the hatchery called me tonight to let me know they will have several more breeds and 300 EE's due to hatch this week. "would you like me to save you a couple dozen?" she asks. Evil I tell you. She knows I'm weak.

 

[sdeneen2001]

Local codes are the only thing saving me. I have a couple neighbors who can see into my back yard. I can have 6 hens - no roos unless they are "muted". I got 8 chicks to allow for 2 losses or roos. So far, I'm pretty sure that one of my delawares is a roo, and I'm watching one of my EEs also. I'll need to find homes (or tables) for the roos. If it weren't for the codes, I wouldn't be able to go into the feed store this time of year. I am SO addicted to fuzz!

 

[zengrrl]

If there were a walk-in hatchery by me, my husband would leave me for sure. I am deciding that one of my polish is a ROO, and a mean one at that. One roo, replace with two!

 

[Hhoky]

Darn that chicken math! It seems it can affect men as well. The "Plan" was a small flock of Dual purpose hens, 4 or 5 max, and a Trio of meat rabbits. It was good Plan. A solid Plan. Then we went shopping. My large masculine proud puerto rican hubby turned into a babbling pile of mushy baby talk!! We barely made it out, luckily with only 4 little dual purpose fuzzy butts. Two days later Hubby is late getting home from work. . . seems he just HAD to swing by and get another bag of chick feed. . . and apparently 2 tiny bunnies.

(Now at this point I had already placed an order for our Meat Bunny trio with a breeder friend to be delivered in 3 days)
Ok fine, we will have 5 bunnies and 4 chicks, no biggie I suppose, still within "The Plan". Kinda.
Next day I get a call from the very sweet old-timer at the feed store, (He knows my grandmother so Lucky me!) warning me that my hubby was there, trying to convince him that we neeeeeded 6 more girls, and maybe 2 or 3 roosters and heck might as well get a turkey too, and was currently sitting in the corner playing with 2 one and half week old duckling that were looking Quote- so very lonely and wanting a new home.. I almost bit my tongue off!

With a little sweet persuasion I was able to convince my hubby we didn't really need that much, but if he thought there was a couple, but NO more than 3 (knowing he would bring home 1 more anyway

) that would look good in our mini barn then to use his best judgment. He came home with 4 girls and a mystery Roo from the rooster pen.
So now we have 3 bunnies, 8 hens and possibly 1 rooster.
Oh, I canceled my meat rabbit order till her next breeding to give my hubby's feed store rabbits a little grow time to show their true colors, but she had an extra mixed breed meat mutt she dropped off for us anyway. In this case, sadly they are mini lops, great pets but no where close to The Plan.
As it stand, we have agreed to only go the feed store together.
We went yesterday. . . I gotta say they had the cutest new baby ducklings, but the baby geese were practically screaming "Take me home, we love you!!" Hmm, maybe "The Plan" needs a goose amendment.

 

[smcjoj3]

This whole thread is making me chuckle! I would be in trouble for sure if we had a walk-in hatchery nearby. My Husband probably thanks the heavens everyday that TSC is a 45 drive from us & that the feed stores only get certain chicks in at certain times. Consequently, I have a calender dedicated to all the feed store chick shipment dates in a 20 mile radius & what is coming in. Originally we were only getting 3 hens for our small coop . You should ask my Husband how many time I have revised and expanded the coop plans to accommodate all the "OOoo I should really get two of these too, they are great layers...." Chicken math is hilarious.

 

[ChicaChicken]

 

[Hottchick]

This may be a stupid question, but how does one mute a rooster? I have two babies that are turning out to be roos and I can't keep them as my town ordinance is idiotic. But if they were mute.........

 

[flocksalot]

Quote:
I just don't feed the husband.

We (my son,7, and I) told my husband we were getting 6 hens. Came home with 6 hens 4 roosters.

Later that year we ordered 40 RIR's, and kept the 8 hens and 1 roo. (Count at 16) Hen went broody must hatch eggs.

(22) Then I picked up 5 hens (27) then we got 35 pullets (62) Then we got 26 chicks. (after some loses and culls we are at 74) Have an order of 75 chicks, 25 turkeys, 6 ducks, 4 geese coming next month, and another 26 coming in June. Hope my husband can't count that high.

We'll just keep em running around they are really hard to count when they keep moving.

: weee: weee: weee: weee: weee

When have 4 coops ranging in size from 3 hen to 40 hen, with two more coops on the way. One being built by the local FFA (for 60 hens) and the other is an old coop I'm going to refurbish. Thankfully we have about 14 acres of productive alfafa grass field (for the horses) that we pasture the poultry on (they go where they go) so the feed requirement over the spring summer fall is almost nil. Oh and we have like no bugs! They get the run of the farm only being fenced when they are young and until they know where to lay their eggs.

 

[weeders n feeders]

Few years ago my hubby was emphatic about not wanting chickens.I kept trying but he was no way no how. Then we were at our neighbors for a cook out and she had one little baby bantam hatched the day before with no similar sized siblings and it was getting harassed. The kids got it on the campaign. they walked around with the chick for hours making sure Papa saw how cute and sweet the barely half dollar sized thing was. She came back across the street home with us. Still lonely, as long as someone was in the house and awake she had to be right by you at least but preferred being held or in a pocket. She helped with homework -who knew a little chick could type on a computer? By the time she was put outside another neighbor had 2 grown Bantams that weren't getting along with her flock so they came home to give Nugget some company. Well eventually some dogs jumped our yard fence and managed to get into the chicken pen and we were back to just Nugget again. So we just had to get more chicks. But outta the six we got thanks to a determined snake we only ended up with three. Sadly Nugget is no longer with us but she was always the head honcho even though she was the smallest and ruled over standard layers. And it was always guaranteed when we went into the pen within seconds she was perched on a head or shoulder. Last year we had a run in with a bob cat -we lost all.
Currently since chick days started again we have 2 each of production reds,leghorns and EEs and 4 cornish X. After picking up a load of sand someone was giving away yesterday and the giver found out wanted the sand for the chickens and her getting very excited about being able to buy eggs from me cause she wants unrefrigerated eggs and knowing we have a few other egg customers in the waiting too hubby said I could go look at TSC today if I wanted to since we probably have some roos -ours gets new chicks in on Monday mornings. Guess where I'm headed soon.
Bottom line -chicken math: no way no how ZERO chickens= 10 and counting.
And just in case no one else has done it - after you've been using your own home grown eggs for a while and then have no choice but to get some from the store be careful how you crack the store eggs. I didn't know an egg could smattering and splash so far. I was too used to having to use force to crack ours(and that was with out the addition of oyster shell) .