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

[Mo'sMenagerie]

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

You can say that again!

 

[Mo'sMenagerie]

We only bought our 4 girls yesterday, had chickens many years ago and now have the room to keep them again, they are Isa Brown and we are looking forward to having our own free range eggs again.

Congratulations!

 

[Blooie]

We got chickens because I didn’t want goats. Hubby loves goats. Ken, our daughter Tam and I were driving home from Cody one day and we always pass a place where the owner has goats...lots of goats! He has a full jungle gym set up for them with an infinite number of boredom busters, caves, with huge dirt mounds over the caves to climb. It’s amazing, and it’s fun to drive by slowly and watch the goats playing. As usual when we‘d drive by, he sighed and said, “I want goats.” And as usual I said, “With all the fruit trees and landscaping we have? We don’t even have room for goats.”

Tam was quiet during this exchange, having heard it repeatedly whenever we made the 50 mile drive for groceries. But this time as soon as Ken and I had dutifully followed our script she said, “Well, you have room for chickens.” Oh, how we laughed! We made every bad chicken joke you can imagine, and tried to outdo each other with lousy chicken puns! We dropped her off at her house and unloaded her groceries, and her words as I got back into the van were, “Gee, Ma. What’s wrong with a few grasshopper grabbers?” I looked at Ken and he looked at me........and by the time we unloaded our stuff and put it away the seed was firmly planted. I ordered 25 chickens later that day.

I had to rehome my flock due to travel 2 years ago. I didn’t think I’d miss them so much. I darn sure didn’t miss going out during howling blizzards to feed and water them, but the rest of the time I’d look out at our beautiful coop and wish. My littlest granddaughter is disabled, but she’d pull herself up at the door, open it and call, “chickens, chickens.” But there weren‘t any anymore like there used to be when she’d giggle at their antics in the yard.

So we ordered chicks last fall. They just started giving us some pullet eggs this week. Kendra gets to see chickens when she looks outside. Life is good. Well, except for the landscaping being totally destroyed over the past 6 years. Probably would have had less damage from the goats.

 

[Mo'sMenagerie]

Alright so ive finally made time and i am here with my story.

I grew up in the city, hadnt ever been around chickens. No one in my immediate family had grown up with chickens except my grandmother who was a country girl but she went away to Jr college at 17.

I did not like birds. When young i was interested in my Aunts Macaw but he bit me real good on the webbing in between my fingers as i tried to hold him once and that was that.

In 2013 i was taking care of my grandma who had dementia and then had a stroke that chair bound her. During this time i had an uncle who had chickens and grandma raved about the fresh eggs. I didnt eat eggs but i noticed the difference in his duck eggs in my baking. When we lost her on Easter of 2014 it really broke me. We had always been close and i felt very much that she could've actually Lived Longer if id been given the help i had begged for.

I didnt leave my house for a month, would hardly leave my bedroom. I had always had reptiles and amphibians and i cruised CL alot where id recieved 2 fishtanks during my time with Grandma. Well i found 2 hens and a rooster for free. I had a lean to shed i thought my ex could easily convert and we decided to get them.

It actually got me outside, everyday, feeding and watering, collecting eggs and then making them more comfortable. I still dont eat chickens eggs but the ex did and he loved having them, he had them with his grandmother as a young boy.

To this day i credit those first birds with the beggining of my healing. I want to thank @aart and @ValerieJ for giving me the strength to share this with your own stories.

Of course chicken math happened and then my BYC acct came about addiction to hatching began and 100s of chicks i hatched in my tabletop incubators. From the start id bought a book and knew if i was going to hatch i would Have to have an outlet for all those extra boys. So i taught myself what to do and later how to do it, with that book.

I had to take a hiatus after playing with those birds but they started something that i hope never ends. My home flooded and i lost 34 of around 100 birds and then i got married and had a little one, all in three years we suddenly had made a big family. I still always kept 3 bantam hens.

The uncle called me up one day, he had 13 CX who needed someone to raise them right and do the deeds. I took them, this was about one yr since my sell off in early 2017. I rasied em up but didnt have a proper coop or anything so hurried up and put em off to freezer camp then continued my mostly hiatus.

Oct of 2018 the friend who i had sold off to wanted to sell off and give me first dibs. The littlest was about a yr old so i said ok, took on a breeding flock of blue laced red wyandottes and my same old pair of Svart Hona with a couple extra hens just because chickens

Wasnt long before i started for quail again. Id had terrible stock back in the day but knew the meat was exquisite. Id enjoyed the little birds, gotten them from 5 diff peoples stock and raised 3 generations, but that was 75% of my flood losses. lost every one of em, small birds in small cages. Just like getting those nice chickens i wanted to do it right started researching quail breeders and learned James Marie Farms is only an hour away

Now i am an NPIP certified poultry breeder with several projects going i have around 60 birds that i overwintered and had 127 eggs alive in the incubator as of Tues

My first birdsView attachment 2014041
First that i raised from chicks
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My egg collection about a month before the flood
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My first hatch, 21 ducklings
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My hona
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My wyandotte roo and blue hen
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Now some coturnix
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And one button
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Thank you for sharing this amazing story!

 

[Mo'sMenagerie]

We're right at the 10-year mark of raising chickens. Our last hen from that first flock, Reba, is still going strong. No more eggs, but she's happy and busily grubbing bugs. Of that mixed flock, our Wellsummers have clearly been the heartiest, living the longest and outwitting the bald eagles. They have been dependable layers of chocolate eggs and have had lovely personalities. For some reason, it's been impossible to get Wellsummer chicks locally to build up our flock, which makes us sad because they are our favorite (even if a bit talkative) breed.

I am adding a wellsummer to my flock this year! Glad to hear them get such a stellar report card

 

[Birdinhand]

I grew up on a farm in PA from the time I was 3 till I was 19 and raised chickens, pigs, goats, lambs and horses and gardened. life was not easy, though I was very blessed, it was an odd mix of the high life on one hand and being land poor at the same time. the winters involved ice on the inside of the windows. occasionally we had to bring a cold piglet into the house to warm it in the oven. I took care of baby birds, fished in a pond. it was isolating but only now do I realize just how fortunate I was to have all those experiences in a world where farms were getting swallowed up by development. fast forward 40 years to the beginning of our family, living in one of those developments, feeling inspired to bring a taste of that life into the life of my children. here we are on 12,000 square feet of land in the hustle and bustle of the Seattle burbs. we have fruit trees, a substantial garden, a big composting system, grape arbor, raspberries, bluberries, apples, appricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches, plums, figs, mulberies, hops, a big chicken coop, bunnies, reptiles, fish tanks, terrariums... we really could be living on a farm but in many ways, it is all working out quite well being close to home depot, costco and the kid's school. we produce most of our own meat by growing out broilers once a year and freezing them. the kids are in 4-H, but also soccer, ice hockey, rock climbing, swimming, in many ways it's a more balanced life than I grew up on. our home is solar, heavily insulated, heated with a heat pump, we drive electric cars. it's an ecosystem in many ways with the hopes that some of it rubs off on the kiddos.

 

[BabyGirl2]

My neighbor had three game hens and released them in the neighborhood. We were already feeding the wild neighborhood ducks and the hens moved in, a friend dropped off a rooster for them. They went through two roosters before one surivived. I put them in a pen to protect them from a chicken killing dog and they've been my babies since. The original chickens have passed on but their kids and grandkids are going strong.

 

[RooFarm]

I've been raising chicken for 12 years, I started out with Mille Fleur D'Uccles and the last one just died a couple of months ago. Now I have 2 nankins, 3 Nankin Xs, 1 Silkie X, 1 Red Pyle OEGB, 1 Crele OEGB, and 1 Golden? Dutch. This spring I will hopefully be adding 2 Appenzeller Spitzhaubens, 3 Silver-laced Orpingtons, and 3 Blue-Laced Red Wyandottes.

Picture of one of my original D'Uccles, Peeka taken last year.
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I still have my D'uccle boy after about 12 years! He has had a heart murmur for about the last two,and now sleeps most the day,as he gets easily tired.I have him in a temp controlled environment,along with my D'uccle girl,who is a year or two younger,but still active.

 

[sueiris]

We've had chickens for the past 14 years or so...started with guinea fowl - big mistake! then got some speckled Sussex bantams which I wish we still had and then over the years a mish-mosh of large fowl, including easter eggers, black copper marans, welsummers, etc. We started out with chocolate wyandotte bantams in 2014 and have been hooked on Wyandotte bantams since then though we do have a few wheaten ameraucana bantam hens......we just got the chocolate wyandotte bantams recognized by the ABA this past December! We currently have black, chocolate, blue, partridge, mottled and chocolate partridge......

 

[KCNC06]

I was actually thinking about this the other day. My brother made a comment about my favorite chicken, an Australorp named Ostrich Lord, is the boss of the fowl yard. She'll whoop someone's butt before our roo would. Anyway, I said it's because she's old...and she's probably old because she's so darn tough. Which got me thinking about how old she is. This ol' girl is just shy of 10 yrs old! I feel like I owe her a birthday cake now.