Lil Red Chicken
In the Brooder
- Mar 11, 2023
- 1
- 16
- 11
Hi I just saw some interesting post on backyard chickens. Well, mine were in the front yard! 
We have had chickens on and off for 45 years. We are between flocks at the moment. Started with ten pullet chicks and ended up with nine and a rooster. We had a homemade chicken house behind what we called the barn. It was actually just trees we had cut down on our property with scavenged old 2x12s as siding. I canāt remember what the roof was made of, which held building materials for our new house. Covered and dry.
The coop was built on the back side of the barn and had 5 nest boxes along two adjacent walls, a chicken wire wall on the third side and siding like the house on the fourth side. The door was on the back side (one of the nest box sides) facing a pond we had dug for our ducks. There were 8 foot high chicken wire fences surrounding the run. We eventually had 2 gray geese who wouldnāt set on their own eggs but raised some ducklings we hatched in a home made brooder. Ducks wouldnāt set on their eggs either. My little girls loved all the birds but kept a good eye out for āGordoā and the geese.
We added 25 more hens to the Flock a few years later. Feed store owner told me, ā35 hens would lay enough eggs to pay for their feed, if you sell the eggs.ā
They might have if we sold all of our eggs. But we didnāt want people just coming out to the house buying eggs and the feed store already had their own eggs to sell. Hubby did sell a lot at work and took a lot to his mother who passed them on to other family and neighbors. I donāt know how much money he ever got for those eggs but we sure had no shortage of eggs.
After that group and my kids had grown we were chickenless for a few years until my daughter brought her new Mobil home to our property and set up her home next door. We had 10 acres we divided into three pieces and we gave her one of them. She talked us into 10 hens on two different occasions so the old barn was replace with a new one with a chicken enclosure on the first floor using chain link fencing on two sides. When we got the extra hens earlier we bought a 10-nest nest box at a farm auction. It was salvaged from the old barn and put into the new one.
Times change and kids grow up and finish college and move away to find a teaching job. They were few in our area so she moved her family to Alaska for 7 years. They offered her everything she asked for so she had a hard time not taking it. It was a good move for them but bad for us.
Again we had to give our flock away as we didnāt have time for them anymore. We were traveling more to so the chickens left the farm.
That only brings me to 2015. Iāll have to tell you about the time left another time. This is already longer than I expected. But yes, Iāve had a lot of experiences with chickens and loved every minute but one person canāt do it all. Iāll tell you about my last flock another time. āā All of my chickens were Rhode Island Reds thatās why Iām the Lil Red Chicken! I have photos but not easily accessed so Iāll add them later as well.
We have had chickens on and off for 45 years. We are between flocks at the moment. Started with ten pullet chicks and ended up with nine and a rooster. We had a homemade chicken house behind what we called the barn. It was actually just trees we had cut down on our property with scavenged old 2x12s as siding. I canāt remember what the roof was made of, which held building materials for our new house. Covered and dry. The coop was built on the back side of the barn and had 5 nest boxes along two adjacent walls, a chicken wire wall on the third side and siding like the house on the fourth side. The door was on the back side (one of the nest box sides) facing a pond we had dug for our ducks. There were 8 foot high chicken wire fences surrounding the run. We eventually had 2 gray geese who wouldnāt set on their own eggs but raised some ducklings we hatched in a home made brooder. Ducks wouldnāt set on their eggs either. My little girls loved all the birds but kept a good eye out for āGordoā and the geese.
We added 25 more hens to the Flock a few years later. Feed store owner told me, ā35 hens would lay enough eggs to pay for their feed, if you sell the eggs.ā
They might have if we sold all of our eggs. But we didnāt want people just coming out to the house buying eggs and the feed store already had their own eggs to sell. Hubby did sell a lot at work and took a lot to his mother who passed them on to other family and neighbors. I donāt know how much money he ever got for those eggs but we sure had no shortage of eggs.After that group and my kids had grown we were chickenless for a few years until my daughter brought her new Mobil home to our property and set up her home next door. We had 10 acres we divided into three pieces and we gave her one of them. She talked us into 10 hens on two different occasions so the old barn was replace with a new one with a chicken enclosure on the first floor using chain link fencing on two sides. When we got the extra hens earlier we bought a 10-nest nest box at a farm auction. It was salvaged from the old barn and put into the new one.
Times change and kids grow up and finish college and move away to find a teaching job. They were few in our area so she moved her family to Alaska for 7 years. They offered her everything she asked for so she had a hard time not taking it. It was a good move for them but bad for us.
Again we had to give our flock away as we didnāt have time for them anymore. We were traveling more to so the chickens left the farm.
That only brings me to 2015. Iāll have to tell you about the time left another time. This is already longer than I expected. But yes, Iāve had a lot of experiences with chickens and loved every minute but one person canāt do it all. Iāll tell you about my last flock another time. āā All of my chickens were Rhode Island Reds thatās why Iām the Lil Red Chicken! I have photos but not easily accessed so Iāll add them later as well.
Glad you joined.
