People with more than 10 chickens

[Erin80]

Good old chicken math.
Currently we have 8 hens. Oldest are 4 years, youngest are coming up on a year. I’ve ordered 20 something day olds, big variety of different pure breeds, coming May 1. Then I’m sure we will be hatching also because it’s fun. Lol.
The way we manage is we don’t keep roosters, so that’s chicken subtraction of I bet half at least of the chicks I ordered (many were straight run). Then we just watch them as they grow and keep our absolute favourites, and sell the extra hens once they’re laying. We also sell any bully hens, anyone who has a personality we don’t love or doesn’t fit in with our current flock.
This coming fall I will be back down to an extra 12 or so once all is said and done. It’s a fun spring/summer hobby and winter is just survival!
We have lots of property and a big two level coop, but I like to stay around 20 or so.

 

[aart]

chicken subtraction

 

[adstowe]

I keep an average of 10-12 + a rooster. This gives me more than enough eggs for friends and coworkers, yet is easily manageable. I've considered going with much more, but this just works for us. I'm at 10 total (with roo) right now and considering not adding ordering any chick's for the first time in years. I'm hoping one of the girls will go broody and add a few, but I want to take a year off from the broader and will just wait and see what I end up with.

 

[tlynnus]

I'm looking for honest opinions of your experiences. Is falling into the chicken math zone always better ( more breeds yay!) but maybe not? I know folks have different situations (selling eggs, need the meat , etc). I'm perfectly fine with extra eggs. Not using my birds for meat. I get too attached. I also greatly miss when my flock were chicks and being able to repeat that process every year would be awesome.

Basically urban owner here and I'm super jealous of you guys that can have as many as you want. Our city restrictions are not too bad but I have limitations to how many chickens we can own and have to monitor the noise. Boo!

I'm 34 working on a goal of someday owning a small home with a few acres. We are in Colorado and it is extremely expensive to obtain that kind of dream here, unless you go to a crappy part of the state. I don't want to leave CO

Wondering if it's really worth it just to collect more chickens My current home is in a very sought after market and near everything + we wouldn't have too much concern over keeping stable jobs if life happens.

We started off with 12 chickens but now have 32 of varying ages. I don’t really find a difference in the amount of work. We get way too many eggs but I sell a dozen or two to our neighbor each week. All of the rest of the extras go to our local food pantry. Out of curiosity, when I dropped them off today, I asked how many egg donations do they normally get. I was told that mine are the only fresh eggs (frozen eggs are supplied by the government) and they only give mine to families with children.

 

[Lemon-Drop]

I have 7 full grown chickens, 8 chicks. I’m hoping it will be a good fit. I love my chickens so much, they are pets only (although I do enjoy the eggs)

 

[Lemon-Drop]

I could definitely do with less chickens. Less food, less water, less eggs I have so many extra eggs! 19 hens all laying. I get minimum a dozen to 18 a day. I feed eggs to my dogs, my cats, and back to the chickens. We hardly make a dent

If you love where you live then I’d say stay put. A small flock is good. More of the joy and less of the work/cost. Unless.... a perfect home with land that’s in your budget popes up on the market. Jump on it! Haha.

I kind of wish I had more eggs... we have 7 full grown hens, but we only get 2 or so eggs a day, and sometimes they come from Mochi, our silkie, so they’re bantam eggs. Hoping with our 8 new chicks we will get more eggs.

 

[Bill752]

We live way out in the country, you have to cross the highway out front to be within the city limits but it's a wooded area that nobody lives in. However, we do have neighbors that live rather close on either side of us so once we started getting a good supply of eggs we shared some with them along with a couple of other families, but when I had a hatchery I liked selling them to cover the feed costs. A dozen eggs doesn't net much money, but a dozen chicks multiplied would pay the feed bill but I also had ducks which were worth more to the point that the chicken eggs & chicks were all profit. I'm retired & wondered if it'd be just as easy selling chicken eggs even now & had a couple people interested in buying free range eggs but my wife came up with a buyer & I need more than 2 dozen layers to meet that person's needs alone. It's great for my health remaining active doing what I enjoy doing & I'll start hatching chicks in 2-3 weeks for ourselves & if buyers come along then it'll be even more profitable with the work minimal. We made self-feeders & waterers out of 5 gallon buckets & both last a couple of days or so before they need refilling & stagger them so they don't all need to be filled all at once. Separating the laying flock from the breeders was a lot of hard work leaning on the gate allowing the layers out while refusing the breeders out. Keep chores & the work involved short & simple so you can have more time to lean on your gate to visit with them & they'll sing for you when they've laid you an egg. With the hatchery I had automatic waterers so shop around & decide which will work out best for you.

 

[writerskramp]

I'm looking for honest opinions of your experiences. Is falling into the chicken math zone always better ( more breeds yay!) but maybe not? I know folks have different situations (selling eggs, need the meat , etc). I'm perfectly fine with extra eggs. Not using my birds for meat. I get too attached. I also greatly miss when my flock were chicks and being able to repeat that process every year would be awesome.

Basically urban owner here and I'm super jealous of you guys that can have as many as you want. Our city restrictions are not too bad but I have limitations to how many chickens we can own and have to monitor the noise. Boo!

I'm 34 working on a goal of someday owning a small home with a few acres. We are in Colorado and it is extremely expensive to obtain that kind of dream here, unless you go to a crappy part of the state. I don't want to leave CO

Wondering if it's really worth it just to collect more chickens My current home is in a very sought after market and near everything + we wouldn't have too much concern over keeping stable jobs if life happens.

"go to a crappy part of the state." and bee happy.

 

[CNJ]

I live in a residential area with a two chicken limit, but I have 15 chickens. I put my rooster in a transportation box at night and keep him in a dark storage room. I let him out when the sun comes out. This guy starts crowing when its still dark outside and its non stop. If I let him sleep outside the neighbors will report me. He starts crowing a little later in the storage room and the sound is contained. I take out a hand full of his poop on pine shavings and replace what I take out daily. No crow collars kill Bresse roosters, their neck skin is too thick and fatty in comparison to other heritage birds.

 

[adstowe]

Wednesday I posted to this thread with my plan to not buy any chicks this year. Oops