Overrrun with chicks!! How many of you have bought too many chicks!!??

[amartinlb]

We are currently overrun with chicks! Currently we are selling off our extra 8-10 week old pullets but we have nearly 30 right now (had to buy 6 each time at feed stores).

I'm not sure if these numbers are correct, but this is what we currently have. We really only intend to keep about 12 pullets...:
3 Silver Laced Wyandottes
3 Gold Laced Wyandottes
3 assorted straight run Polish
About 12 straight run Gold Laced Polish (store got in assorted polish from Ideal Hatchery, nearly all of them were gold laced!)
2 straight run Giant Cochin, appears to be 1 buff 1 white
1 possible Langshan straight run
1 straight run sultan
1 supposed Pullet Silver Phoenix
2 Buff Orpingtons
2 Barred Rocks
4 Cuckoo Marans
6 Ameraucana Mutts/EEs
1 Delaware
2 Rhode Island Reds
3 pullet Silver Spangled Spitzhauben Appenzellers
1 possible Buff laced polish straight run
1 unknown, got for free (store dropped it four feet to the ground and it limped for a little bit, not sure if its leg is broken or just bruised up)

Currently their living space is a 16ftx8ft shed that is very tall, and a run that is 6ft tall and appears to be a 10ftx10ft or 8ftx8ft square. We have more dog run panels laying around and may expand it later...

What about you guys? Anybody else that got chick crazy and bought a large amount!!!??? LOL!

-Anna

 

[cackle]

If you ask me No. If you ask my husband Oh yeah you don't want to hear what he says. Right now we have:

8 - 1year old RIR hens
6 Y 1year old BR hens
1 -1year old RIR rooster
1 silkie roo
1 silkie hen (sitting on 8 eggs)
4 -7 week old BSL chicks 3 pullets 1 roo
2 -7 week old RIR - 1 of each

ouur 3 week olds are:
19 we hatched
4 RIR
12 BSL 7 roos 5 pullets
3 silkies - who knows what they are
9 from TSC
4 EE
1 RIR
4 White leghorns

40 meat chicks 5 days old.

Did I mention the 26 silkie eggs in the incubator???

Yeah I think we are overrun with chickens.

 

[aaronzclark]

I have 5 Light brahma 5 partridge rock 5 araucanas 5 jersey giants 4 mille fleur 4 buff orpington 2 dark brahma 4 white leggerns 2 RIR 1 polish PLUS
2 ducks 7 guineas

 

[chicken_china_mom]

My neighbors talked me into buying 30+ chicks because they said most would die and if I wanted to get at least 10 to live, then I needed to buy a larger number. So, foolishly I did. I'm glad now that I did cause I love every one of the little boogers! All of our chicks are 4 weeks old (came from Cackle Hatchery) & 3 weeks old (came from TSC) What we currently have is:

4 white Silkies (Lost only one of these from the hatchery)

6 Partridge Cochins (bantam)

6 Splash Cochins (bantam)

6 Silver Laced Wyandottes

3 Birchen Cochins (bantam)

3 Barred Cochins (bantam)

3 Amber Sexlinks

1 Mille Fleur

1 Silkie cross

1 Golden Laced OEGB

1 Golden Sebright

and 2 Mallard ducklings

And I want more! My older daughter still wants at least one Frizzle, and I still want some Polish. I also want some more sebrights, and my younger daughter wants a Phoenix eventually. We'll have to see about that last one though. I love my birds!

 

[erthymom2]

"too many chicks?" ...what is too many?? I always say if you have 50, whats 10 more, etc. That idea works with chicks, shoes, clothes, magazines, etc. LOL

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

I think we are at 50+ chicks and 6 more ducks coming home soon. That will make 12 ducklings total.

 

[Settler'sDreamFarm]

Not as many breeds but.......:
-10 bantam buff brahmas
-10 bantam buff cohins
-10 buff silkies
-3 Easter Eggers
-5 buff orpington ducks

 

[R@ndy]

Im up to 20 bantams, 8 pullet ee's and 12 red stars pullets

 

[Pretty_birdies]

I posted a question like this on another website and couldn’t believe how many people have over 100 birds!

I started with 10 st. run Buff Orpington, 10 st run Bl. Austalorps and a dozen RIR babies last spring, thinking I could eat the roosters and keep the rest for eggs. I couldn’t eat them after making spoiled babies out of them, so I gave all but one Buff rooster away to someone who could eat them. I ended up with 1 Buff hen, 1 Aust. Hen and 8 RIR also adopted 3 rescue hens, which were a barred rock, a black silkie bantam and “granny chicken” (an older Americana). I also got a trio of Crested Blue Swedish ducklings in a trade.
This spring I decided I wanted to add to the flock. After hatching a several ducks in the incubator and trading with some local enthusiasts, a broody RIR who sat on a Australorps nest and hatched out three babies, a few hard to resist trips to the feed store and a couple orders from the hatchery, I now have:
7 Blue Crested Swedish Ducks
3 Black Crested Swedish
9 Cayuga Ducklings
14 Buff Orpingtons (3 roosters)
14 Black Austalorps
6 Barred Rocks
3 Americanas
3 Blue Andalusian hens
4 White Faced Black Spanish (at least 1 is a rooster)
5 Silkies (1 beautiful white roo)
2 Silver penciled Hamburg hens
1 Frizzle cochin bantam rooster
3 cochin bantam hens
4 standard cochin hens
3 Black hens (don’t know yet what kind because they were in an assortment pkg).
2 Buff ?? hens (not Orpington) also not sure yet what kind for the same reason
1 Sultan
1 White Crested black polish
2 Dark Cornish Bantams
1 Buff Brahma bantam rooster
1 White Japanese rooster
1 black tailed buff Japanese rooster
3 buff Japanese hens
2 game chickens I don’t know what kind
6 mutts (4 Australorp/Orpington mix, 1 Americana/Orpington mix and one RIR/Orpington mix)
AND… 5 ?? male babies that came with an order of ducks to keep them warm (they are going o a new home this week).
I think that’s over 100! I get up at 5:30 to feed them before I go to work. Most of them are pretty tame and like to sit in our laps or hang around the back door hoping for a chance to sneak in. Once I found a RIR in the bathroom vanity admiring herself in the mirror!
We love each of them and donate eggs to families who have lost jobs in construction due to the housing fiasco. We are thinking about getting some Yokihamas, Phoenix and Sumatras.

 

[debakadeb]

I have 5, 1yr olds, 21 7-wk olds, and 4, 4-wk olds, and 8 2-week olds. I have to say the 21 were overwhelming to me. I just started getting chickens last year..started with six, lost one. I love the five. I spent a lot of time with them. Even though the 20 are multiple breeds, I can't tell them apart and don't feel like I gave them the same attention as last year's flock. Now that they are outside, we are all happier campers

I do love the baby chicks...and even my grown hens but for a short while I began to think I went a bit overboard.