People with more than 10 chickens

[Dottie the Chicken]

I sell eggs, and currently have 65 hens. I also have 8, 2 and a half week old chicks, and 7 less than a week olds. I have a good few different breeds, but my main breed is the ISA Brown. I also have 25 more babies coming next month. I get rid of some old birds here and there.

 

[Peggsblueinc]

What do you feed them? Is it a layer feed? Do you have roosters or younger, non-laying birds? Are the 2 that are laying thin shelled eggs older and their eggs have just degraded in quality? Excessive calcium is not good for males or young (pre-laying) birds, so if if you have them, increasing the calcium across the board isn't a good option. We need more info

All my girls are of laying age now. Yes I feed layer feed. I only have one rooster. They are feed veggies and sunflower seeds. Fruit corn. Of course not all in same day. They roost in cresole bushes. Only four go into coop at night. I do give them vitamins put in the water. I don’t know who is laying the thin shell they free range during the day and come and go into coop when their ready to lay. As I said they are suppose to eat the oyster shells when they feel it necessary so I’m at a loss.

 

[Lovem all]

we kept over ten chickens (and a roo) for years in a place we weren't allowed and no one carred. We juust gave out a few eggs every so offten

 

[B-Goock]

Ten? Thats a normal butcher number for me. Think since last spring I'm close to 60 in freezer camp not counting quail.
We sell some eggs as well so I maintain about 20 layers.

 

[cluckcluckhens]

We live in rural OR. Here it is based on how much land you have. We have close to an acre of land so I can add more chickens if we want to. Right now we have 10 chickens including a Rooster and his son little cock boy or jr. For us 10 is enough. First chickens in 2012 we had 12. Our neighbors don't complain at all and we are all friends. Neighbors do get some of our eggs when they ask or we just give them to them. I have three neighbors in walking distance from our backyard. All three of our neighbors are friends.

To be funny when we got chickens in 2012 we did not tell our backyard neighbors behind us, we had a Rooster. Husband of neighbor never was around chickens at all but wife has. We told her only. At the time her husband complained what is that noise outside and all his wife said is they have a Rooster and it was going off while he was trying to sleep the first night. It was so funny to hear from her what her husband said that morning.

 

[adstowe]

I havent had it happen, but I've heard of some hens refusing to eat the oyster shell granules and people buying some sort of smaller flake version or something. Try creating a thread in the feeding/nutrition section and I'm sure you'll get more responses.

 

[writerskramp]

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.

Congratulations on your subterfuge.. very plucky.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

I'm 34 working on a goal of someday owning a small home with a few acres. ...near everything + we wouldn't have too much concern over keeping stable jobs if life happens.

I have walked the path you are on. I am 15yrs older and I can tell you, now that I am here: run, don't walk. Stop wasting time, you don't get it back, and building is much easier at 34 than at 50.

Go take a drive through that 'crappy' part of the state and see it with fresh eyes. It might just be other people telling you it is not the better place. Maybe it is better there, and other people just don't see right.

Your happiness will not look like other people's happiness looks. As to the work-is-easier-to-find idea, those things work out too. If you want to work, you'll always find it. If you are happy where you live, you'll figure it out much easier than working like a mule for a life you aren't enjoying.

 

[CNJ]

All my girls are of laying age now. Yes I feed layer feed. I only have one rooster. They are feed veggies and sunflower seeds. Fruit corn. Of course not all in same day. They roost in cresole bushes. Only four go into coop at night. I do give them vitamins put in the water. I don’t know who is laying the thin shell they free range during the day and come and go into coop when their ready to lay. As I said they are suppose to eat the oyster shells when they feel it necessary so I’m at a loss.

My hens laid soft eggs when they got spoiled and ate only scratch grain. I had to starve them, for them to eat layer pellets.

 

[Kimi BK]

We were backyard chicken owners and are now farmsteaders with no restrictions.

When in our back yard we were allowed 4, had 5 for a while, and had a neighbor who would have been happy to have us get 8 and call 4 of them hers. We kept them as pets-with-benefits and our oldest was 8 when she died. When she was the last alive we did get three new pullets to keep her company, but we already knew we would be moving so promised not to get so attached that we couldn't give them away when we moved, which we did. Some years we had more eggs than we could eat, and other years/seasons we had to buy eggs.

Now we have 24 birds and ended up with 12 roos and 12 pullets. We have made the transition to "farmers" and our chickens have shifted from "pets" to "livestock." We still enjoy them but don't name them. (Well, OK, except for Eaglet!) They are 5 months old, and we've harvested our first 3 roos (not easy, but doable, and I don't think we will be buying chicken meat again). We are letting ourselves get closer to the pullets, so when we eventually harvest them it will be harder. We plan to breed, but do not plan to keep roos with the pullets, so we can keep the eggs unfertilized. We will keep 3 roos for breeding, in a small bachelor's coop. We will be building a bigger coop for the layers, and will use our 12-bird coop for breeding.

Right now we have 4 breeds. We may eventually pick a favorite and go with that for breeding. In the meantime it will be complicated!

We do hope to sell the eggs, but so far our guesses say the cost of the feed/grit/shell/straw/carton will come out to something like $4-$5 per dozen eggs, and I am not sure our little rural farmers' market will let us recoup our costs! (I don't expect to recoup our infrastructure costs, since we can sell those or add it to our property value, and I don't expect to recoup our labor costs -- just consumables). If we can't cover our consumables there is no point in having that many chickens -- unless maybe we have plenty of other profitable stuff for market and the eggs brings folks to our table. We are basing our estimates on minimal data; once we've had them longer and they are in laying mode and we aren't feeding roos as well, we'll have a better idea of what the hens' consumable costs are, and how many eggs we will really get per hen. We live in high desert so we don't have lots of forage for them but are sprouting grains for more greenery, and we ferment 1/2 of their feed. Our chickens eat really well! We are not interested on skimping on that. If it's a losing proposition we will just cut down on numbers.

We do also plan to make things with the feathers and sell them as market crafts; that might help the equation a bit (if we also don't pay ourselves any labor for that!) If we get the appropriate permits we could also bake cookies, etc. with the eggs and have some value-added products for market.

Right now with 12 pullets (not all started) we are getting 6-7 eggs a day so far. Too much to eat, not enough to approach our local markets (and still too small as well), so we are in giveaway mode.

We'll see how it goes!