How did you get into chickens??

[heathersboers]

Just curious to how everyone got their start.

Ours was from tractor Supply- I had no idea on breeds and picked out the pretty chicks which turned out to be GLW and RIR- Tractor Supply even gave me about 10 cornish X because of the others picking their tail-feathers- they were so much larger than the others and they HAD to find them homes... I raised those and hatched out my first batch- Th us the chicken love begins

 

[tinychicky]

i can't even remember when i first got into chickens. i got my first ones only about five years ago, but i've loved them my whole life. i guess it was probably when my next door neighbors got thier chickens (i was about four). living across the street from them, i practically grew up with them. i can't remember a time when i didn't wake up to the crowing of a rooster. i'm always glad to hear about other people getting in to chickens!

 

[j egger]

Thet's is the easiest question I have ever heard, the answer is to go to ypur local farm supply and pick up chickens, or, go to a online chicken website and buy some. I do wish though you asked a hard question though. (sorry for being sarcastic, I do that a lot, ha, ha)

 

[heathersboers]

Quote:
I was asking how you got YOUR start...

 

[Heckel's Hens]

We moved to the country 20 months ago, and the first thing I said was, "I want some chickens!" We had to do a ton of work on the house first, but now it's chickie time.

 

[WIChookchick]

I didn't grow up with chickens per se, but my aunts' had them on their properties. Although I did buy a chick at a feed store as a child, I don't remember what happened to it.
When I was 4ish I grabbed all the eggs from a canadian goose nest at a park and did the "they followed me home, can we keep them".
I was in early middle school and helped rescue some baby ducklings from a storm drain, and I brought them home and put them in the tub with some water. My mother worked 3rd shift, so came home, exhausted, gone to the restroom to the call of nature (in this case literally), and heard quacking type cheeps from behind the shower curtain. The ensuing cry and my name being yelled.. CAROLYN ANN!!!
When I was about 13 I got a rooster and a few hens, the rooster was the one I remember the rooster the most, he was a motley looking rooster, he came with the name Brutus, but after my mom
got divorced from her 2nd husband who's name was Jerry Hercules, he was rather motley in her eyes, so she renamed my rooster Hercules!!

Well in my 20's after getting out of the Navy, I moved to a place where I could do self care for my horse and it had a little barn, AND I got two Cornish cross straight run chicks to use
at a magic show at a Renn Faire... ( I held them in my sleeves and would tell people that that my medieval beeper

) After they grew up a bit, I moved them to my barn.
They were both fatally attacked by neighborhood dogs. I then got 4 pullets and raised them at home, along with a gosling. We had to keep them indoors in our dinning room one winter
the back yard flooded so bad. And when the goose started honking we told people (at first) it was a parrot, and then told some one who heard it, that it was a rare breed of dog called a
Honksu Ahpso, a tibetian breed of dog that sounded like a goose when it barked. She went to live at a park with permission so that the city would have female geese for the many male ganders
there.
When I moved to WI, we gave our hens to some very good friends, and I only just got back into them about a year and a half ago. And now have nearly 30.

 

[gryeyes]

So, I was a couch potato for most of my adult life. Lived in the same mobile home community for just over 20 years. Worked for two separate agencies, both in the 9-1-1 environment, for about 27 years. Made a professional change and promoted to a different type of job within the same department, but had to relocate to accept the position. Did that.

Found a great rental house. Landlady gave permission for me to build a goldfish pond. Built one, added a second. ALL BY MYSELF. Decided I could try some raised bed gardening, built some of those. Planted some vegetables. Got tired of constantly amending the soil. Started thinking, hmmmmmmm, if I had a couple of chickens, I could get some of the best fertilizer in the world. Oh, and they are good bug catchers, too! Hmmm. And they lay eggs, so, that would be nifty, too.

Started looking for simple coop plans. Built an A-Frame coop. Took all summer (2009) because the only thing I've ever built before is a book-case out of boards and concrete blocks. Can't count the doghouse I built 25 years earlier, because ... well, it doesn't count. It was a box big enough for my dog and half the neighborhood dogs to come over and play poker in it. Dog never slept in it, anyway.

By the time I got the coop built, it was late September. A co-worker was amazed I was considering ordering live chicks to be shipped because he knew there were feed stores and/or farmers' markets where chickens could be found. But by then, all the nearby feed stores were out of chicks. Except one.....

That particular feed store has become my favorite one. Even though I am now hatching chicks and no longer buy live chicks there, I do get all my supplies at that feed store. And the employees are amazed I hatched Trader Joe eggs. (Yes, we actually have conversations and discuss things, they don't just sell me things.)

The first amazing thing I learned about chickens is that each and every one of them has its own personality. Eggs are simply a bonus - a gift from the chickens.

 

[Nicola]

School science club project, i got a chick from that but went and bought it some company ( some hybrid layer chicks) then built my own bator that week and hatched some other chicks a month later and some more cochin bantams.. i only have 3 Cochin bantams the roos that hatched were sold and the other chicks i got to keep the science club chick went to my aunts once they were mature the original chick ii got died from problems after hatching.

 

[bakerjw]

CURSE YOU TSC!!!!

My 8 pullets (Our girls) were the first. They're great egg layers and love you if you have treats.

Then came the "Chicklets". I went to pick up some Silver Sebrights not realizing that they were a bantam. The guy also had White Rocks. I arrived home shortly thereafter and the flock went to 18.

Last November one of the girls went broody. Sat and clucked all the time. I found a large clutch of 13 eggs laid by my free ranging Chicklets. 1 broody hen with a clutch of fertilized eggs equaled 7 chicks bringing the total to 25.

A few weeks later one of the Chicklet WR hens went missing but magically showed up again 2 weeks later. Found her nest and brought her and the eggs in when they started pipping and peeping. Four more chicks later I had 2 flocks of 25 total.

THEN to compound the matter I went and bought an incubator.

SO I am collecting free ranger Chicklet eggs this week and into next and am adding some of the Girls eggs which were fertilized thanks to a valiant escape by 5 of them into the realm of the WR roos. The boys had fun that day. I then won an auction on EBay for a dozen WR eggs. Now next week I will be putting 40+ eggs into the incubator with the hopes that I get a good hatch out of them.

That is how I got into chickens.

 

[chickensioux]

Thru the vent.