Oh, my goodness. Let me get started here... I haven't even been keeping chickens for a year yet. I thought it would be a nice thing to have free fertilizer for my raised garden beds, AND get some eggs too, while I was at it. So I built an A-Frame coop all by myself. (Looks like it, too, but the chickens don't care.) Took me 3 months, because I only worked on it on the weekends and I had never built anything before in my life other than put-together kits for various things in the house. By the time I finished it in late September 2009, the nearest feed store stopped selling chicks. So I considered ordering some online. However, somebody at work said they'd seen chicks in feed stores, I should call around. So I found a feed store with chicks, and drove there on Saturday, October 3, 2009. BINS of chicks, sorted by breed and sex!
Thought 4, maybe 6 chickens would do. Bought 6 "pullets," all different kinds. One died within a week. So I went back and bought two more. And so it began.....
Never in my life had I considered how enjoyable it would be to keep chickens. Or how EACH chicken would have its own, discernable personality. Oh what fun it is, every day, to gather eggs. The very first egg was very eggsciting to get, but it's still a wonder to gather eggs every day. Lots of different colored eggs. Listening to the happy murmurring, chortling, clucking birds. Watching them scratch the ground for bugs. Having one jump to my lap and sit there to tell me chicken stories very earnestly. Observing rooster behavior with his ladies. EATING the wonderful eggs. Cheering when the girls find a nest of earwigs, chase 'em down and gobble 'em all up.
I've purchased a coop kit off
eBay, built another coop, given away the
eBay coop, converted a Little Tyke's Playhouse to a coop, purchased a well-built Fancy Schmancy coop, and expanded my run three times.
All this since my 56th birthday. I'm happier, healthier, and just a little bit addicted to chickens now.
Welcome to the club!
