Official BYC Poll: How Long Have You Been Raising Chickens?

[mrs3rrl]

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In addition to answering the poll, please reply with some fun details, like:

What got you interested in raising chickens?
Did you ever "take a break" and not have chickens?
What breeds did you start with, how many, and do you have any pictures to share?

My grandmother had a 'chicken farm' (that's what she called it, but the chickens were all raised in cages) for many years, ending in about 1960 or so. As a child, I helped take care of the baby chicks in the brooder, gather the eggs, feed the chickens, look at the eggs with this special light, slaughter the chickens, and pluck the chickens.

I guess it rubbed off on me, and as an adult I always wanted chickens, but I lived in suburbia. As soon as I moved to a rural area, I got my first chickens, and I've had them ever since, except a short period when we moved from California to Idaho. Hated to leave my favorites behind, but just couldn't figure out how to move them on a 3-day drive. As soon as I could, I bought more.

I started out with just 4 'miscellaneous' chicks from the feed store, which turned out to be 3 Rhode Island Reds and something we think was an Andalusian. The Andalusian was older, ,just starting to get some feathers and looked like a baby buzzard - hence the name "Buzz". Later, we started ordering chickens online, and getting a variety of breeds, Aracauna/Americana, Cochin, Golden Polish, Sumatra, Barred Plymouth Rock, German Lakenvelder, Red Sex Linked, New Hampshire. Most of the time, we've had roosters as well, so they interbred, coming up with some fantastic mixes.

Right now, we're down to only 1 chicken, after a neighbor's dog killed two, and some wild animal got into the pen and grabbed one. The one that was left was one that always lagged behind the others... maybe that's why she didn't get nabbed. She was sad when she was alone, but we found that she became much friendlier with us. Guess she needed the company, and figured we were like big chickens. We now also have ducks, and the chicken and the duck hang out together.

 

[Maxie2955]

I got interested in raising chickens about seven years ago after I realized I was great at growing my own produce. At that time I did not have a big backyard, so I just did a whole lot of research until I bought my forever home with a nice big backyard. Once I got my garden area setup and reestablished. I set garden goals, the second one was getting a chicken coop and some chickens. I had a big set back when one of my gigantic trees fell into the backyard. I finally got my coop and chickens three years and two months after being in my forever home and the girls are loving it now that they are in the backyard.

 

[Kiki]

I am LOVING all of the stories guys!
Thank you all for sharing.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

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My first rooster was famous. He just died a couple months ago. This is a video of our Farm Aid video, when my father in law owned our dairy before we bought it from him.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I will have raised chickens for 11 years straight in May (that is if my hens live for a few more months! ). I hope it's okay that I chose 11-20.

My parents started our hobby farm with chickens and goats and I just loved the chickens (more than the goats!). I have since taken over most of the chicken chores.

Our first flock was and still is the most special to me. Here is a photo of some of them.

Our first flock included two Easter Eggers and I'm pretty sure we have always had at least one EE in our flock ever since. This is one of our first EEs and the egg she laid. Her name was Banana.

We tried guineafowl one time, and they were fun and funny, but we didn't like how noisy and nasty they were.

After my current flock is all gone (I only have four hens now), I'm not sure what I'm going to do. My dream would be to remodel the coop to make it easier to clean and just look nicer, but I might not find the time or money to do that... I do hope to continue to raise chickens, though.

 

[HuskerHens18]

I've been raising mine 8 consecutive years.
There was a period in my childhood where I had 200 roosters... but they were technically my Mom's, I never took care of them. So I've had chickens maybe 10+ total years, but there is about a decade between those 200 roosters and my current flock.
I still have hens from my first set of chicks 8 years ago. The only way they show their age is their intelligence while free ranging. They watch the skies for hawks, stay away from the treeline, and put themselves away before the rest of the flock. They are the first to make the alert call if something seems wrong. It makes my roosters herd the rest back to the coop for safety.

It all started with my sister wanting to co-own some birds with me. I wanted ducks, she wanted chickens. This is rather hard to believe, but upon arrival of 15 ducks and 25 chickens, my sister discovered she was deathly afraid of birds. She couldn't even be in the same room without panicking at their every movement and noise. That left me to care for 25 unwanted chickens... it turns out I am not that much of a duck person. I fell in love with the chicks and bonded with them.
If I remember the breeds correctly, there were Anconas, Buff Brahmas, White Brahmas, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, and Buff Orphingtons.
There was a booboo with the order, I paid for sexed females and turns out I got 20 roosters and 13 drakes. I tried my best to keep them all, but I was a newbie and they started killing each other. I had to sell nearly all of them. (It never occurred to me then how mom had kept 200 roosters, I never tried my own rooster flock until 2018)

To this day, I have 2 of the original Ancona hens and 1 Fawn and White Runner drake.

As for pictures... I could crash the site with all the pictures I've taken of them throughout the years For now, have 1!

Here is one of the 8 year old Anconas. ❤

 

[A & N Eastman]

I was in a bombing in the middle east and my wife and I wanted something to do for me. Since I was raised on a farm we thought raising chickens would be the ticket and sell what we do not use.

We started out with 10 hens and now have up to 40 and raise our own chicks by either letting a hen sit and we use an incubator for the other 60 or so.

I would sit down there in the wheelchair for hours on end and watch the critters and laugh at all the silly things they did. Helped my depression a lot.
Now that I am out of a wheelchair I go down once in a while to sit and watch them. We raise new chicks every year and the old ones go to the butcher and eat all of them with soap or other dishes.

This year was the worst for critters and got away with 11 of them.
We started off putting them in a 10'x20' pole shed and it has morphed into a chicken palace with fenced in runs with a roof over the top. Thank goodness for my Brother in Law helping us all the time. In the winter my wife takes care of them all the time not wanting me to fall, but on good days I go down to sit and watch again in the warm sun.

 

[Kiki]

I was in a bombing in the middle east and my wife and I wanted something to do for me. Since I was raised on a farm we thought raising chickens would be the ticket and sell what we do not use.

We started out with 10 hens and now have up to 40 and raise our own chicks by either letting a hen sit and we use an incubator for the other 60 or so.

I would sit down there in the wheelchair for hours on end and watch the critters and laugh at all the silly things they did. Helped my depression a lot.
Now that I am out of a wheelchair I go down once in a while to sit and watch them. We raise new chicks every year and the old ones go to the butcher and eat all of them with soap or other dishes.

This year was the worst for critters and got away with 11 of them. View attachment 2010720
We started off putting them in a 10'x20' pole shed and it has morphed into a chicken palace with fenced in runs with a roof over the top. Thank goodness for my Brother in Law helping us all the time. In the winter my wife takes care of them all the time not wanting me to fall, but on good days I go down to sit and watch again in the warm sun.View attachment 2010711View attachment 2010719

Welcome to BYC!

 

[ValerieJ]

It's been 5 years for me, I got interested because of the price of eggs, I'd lived in SC before moving to AZ, I was use to paying .99 cents a dozen for eggs, then moved out to AZ and it was almost 3.00 per dozen. I figured I'd just get 6 hens, that would supply me with enough eggs for my husband and I, then I read on here where people lost a bunch of their chicks, so I got another 6 of the Black Sexlinks, I ended up with 12 healthy and happy hens.. I'm afraid chicken math struck and I now have 50 +/-

I love that! And if you're like the rest of us, your eggs only cost you about $12 a dozen now.

 

[oldhen2345]

This Spring will be 10yrs for us with chickens. I had always wanted them & finally convinced DH that it would be a great homeschool project. We did all of our research, built a incubator out of repurposed items from around the house & ordered the eggs.

I wont lie, it was an exhilarating experience hatching them, but they were both cockerels & we aren't zoned for roosters. We kept them for as long as we could while we added hens to the flock. Our first pullets were Red Sex Links because we were traumatized over rehoming our beloved boys & we needed to be 100% positive the next batch would be hens. RSL were a great beginner flock, but a little boring to look at (no offense ladies.) We've branched out a bit since then.

We added ducks & quail 5yrs ago & that was the catalyst for me to finally stop stalking the pages of BYC & actually become a member.

We have only hatched one other time & that was an experiment to see if we could broody hatch a carton of eggs that we had bought. Only one hatched. Again, it was an exhilarating experience & again, it was a cockerel.

The difference in a chick hatched/raised in an incubator/brooder vs a chick broody hatched & raised is as different as night and day. If I could broody hatch a million chicks I would, but unfortunately my luck with hatching pullets is exactly zero.
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Woops! This got a little picture heavy.... The End.
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Love yr flocks. Cute fluffy butts