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Chicken math at my house worked like this: We are a family of four, so could use eggs from 4 chickens, and parents live near, so maybe six total. But we are going to get coop built first. I research breeds - neither of us has ever had chickens, and we decide on some large, calm, egg layers. So we go to feed store - just to look to see what's avaiable - and they display chicks in horse troughs - which we have many unused from barn that previously held 6 horses, and think - we have all we need to start this TODAY. So I pick 6 chicks on my list, and we head to other feed store to see what they have, and hub picks 9 from his list, and there is one lonely chick that they can't leave in the pen alone, so they throw in him for free. 16 chicks now. But they are day olds, and day olds die, right?
Six weeks later they are healthy and outgrowing their horse trough, so moved to dog run, while I am designing chicken coop and weather is record cold for spring. And hub sees ad for Naragansett turkey. Let's just look, right? She has one left she needs to move to make room for new chicks hatching. He says, "Ill take it". I say we can't put it in with our other chicks - and she says I'll throw in a little rooster to keep it company. Back to new chicks again. Well the turkey has zero personality, and the little roo chick is bored to tears. The turkey can't even drink unless it immediately follows the roo. I hand water it for four days! So the roo needs some companionship. We go look at Faverolles, also on my list, but they are not hatched yet. But he has Copper Marans we can take home right then (to make roo happy.) So home come the Marans. A few days later the Faverolles are hatched, so as long as this whole new crowd is so young, may as well add to it, right?
Short story: We wanted 6 hens. We ended up with 3 Buff Orp hens, 2 Buff Roos, 2 SLW hens, 2 Aus hens, 7 EE hoping hens but not positive yet, 1 Naragansett turkey poult, 1 Golden Cuckoo Marans Roo, 2 Copper Marans hens, 3 Faverolle hens and 2 poss roos. We now have 25, coop built, run not completed, not an egg in sight, three weekends and prob 600 spent on henhouse, nest boxes, and run.
How is being chicken poor supposed to help me be more self-sufficient? Chicken Math
Well I do have a 16 yo mare that I used to compete on. She is bred really well and is extremely talented. A neighboring farm with fantastic foundation bred quarter horses recently lost their trainer and offered me this deal... for training a few of their 3yo they will offer me a free breeding to one of their 4 stallions (my choice {red roan, blue roan, gray, or black}) and offer me my choice of 9 of the said 3yo geldings!!!!
