People with more than 10 chickens

[CNJ]

My hens hated the layer pellets too when I started giving them scratch grain. I swapped to crumbles and they love that so you may wanna try that instead.

I had a problem with more than a hundred doves eating my feed and it would be worse with crumbles, so I did not switch to crumbles until I bought a mechanical feeder. However, the first one I bought really spooked them, it would slam shut after they stepped off the peddle. I had to buy a better one with a hydraulic hinge that slowly closes when they step off the peddle. I switch to layer crumble after they got used to it...............

I had to zip tie a 2x2 piece of wood across the peddle on the first one to prevent it from slamming shut. However, it doesn't close all the way down, and a bunch of doves can open top, so I put something heavy on the top when I let them out to play and leave the hydraulic one out side the coop. The doves don't try to get in the feeder while the chickens are in the coop.

 

[Acre4Me]

We don’t have restrictions that we could find anywhere, but live more rural with only a few neighbors. We’ve had roosters, our current one has yet to crow even once (he’s almost 9 months old, and just started mounting hens in the past 2 or 3 weeks)!

we have more chickens bc kid shows in 4-H county show and fills in the max categories that they can show in - they have a limit, and cannot show in all categories. Since some are shown as a pair (2 females), we need more of that breed so we can have 2 that are similar in size, etc. some are shown as a breed type (single entry of a M or F). Anyway, we end up buying chicks in Feb so we have layers by fair, then sell off excess we do not want to care for over the winter. We keep the remaining 4 from our original flock, then based on preference for whomever else we want to keep. So, we’ve sold 9 month old layers up to 2 year olds, but always label them with their hatch date (or month/year) so any buyer at the auction knows what they are getting.

currently, we have a large flock bc we have Feb chicks, plus the 18+ we already had, and the two groups actually integrated smoothly (yes, pecking order reared its head, but really the older girls aren’t being too bad), so I figure we should keep them through the spring, and maybe summer to benefit from the eggs (to keep or give away) then sell late summer or early fall.

once 4-H doesn’t play a role, we will likely downsize the flock overall!

 

[fatty and friends]

i have ducks not chickens, but i feel like keeping a small flock is the best. you get to have a bond with all of them, know all their special personalities, and so much more

i don’t eat (or sell) eggs, i would NEVER eat or kill (or let someone kill) my ducks, and they are my babies lol just like a cat or dog can be

 

[TwoShepherds]

I just recently downsized my flock from 21 to 11 to make room for new eggs in the incubator and for new chicks coming in the mail. I like having fewer chickens mainly because the expense is less (feed gets expensive) and the clean-up is easier. I have fewer eggs, about 5-6 daily as opposed to 12 or more--I'm not sure if this is good or bad yet. I love getting eggs, but have limited storage, and I kind of get overwhelmed with eggs at times. I don't sell eggs but I enjoying giving them away to friends and family, and I may not be able keep doing that with fewer chickens.

If I could easily build coops and runs, or had more free time to learn new skills, or had unlimited funds to hire someone to build for me, I'd probably have a set up for meat birds and a couple of breeding pens. It's probably a good thing for my bank account and my chicken math that I don't build things.

At any rate, all of this is to say, I'm quite enjoying my smaller flock of 11 at the moment, and plan to sell some of the chicks from the eggs I'm hatching, and perhaps some of the older birds at the end of the summer to keep my numbers down a bit.

 

[ChookieG]

I had a problem with more than a hundred doves eating my feed and it would be worse with crumbles, so I did not switch to crumbles until I bought a mechanical feeder. However, the first one I bought really spooked them, it would slam shut after they stepped off the peddle. I had to buy a better one with a hydraulic hinge that slowly closes when they step off the peddle. I switch to layer crumble after they got used to it...............

I had to zip tie a 2x2 piece of wood across the peddle on the first one to prevent it from slamming shut. However, it doesn't close all the way down, and a bunch of doves can open top, so I put something heavy on the top when I let them out to play and leave the hydraulic one out side the coop. The doves don't try to get in the feeder while the chickens are in the coop.

Yeah I had the same problem with my treadle feeder. Bout a few weeks ago I bought a roo that was used to these feeders and when he accidentally stepped on it and the lid slammed shut he didn't even flinch! The girls eventually got used to it as they learned that it wasn't so scary when the roo didn't even react.

 

[ChookieG]

I locked them up and started feeding my hens layer crumble. I checked my mechanical feeder today and it was almost empty. I came to the same conclusion.

Are you sure it wasn't a grain-savage cryptid that got to it!!?

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

Do

We live on almost 20 acres out in the country and have (I think) 50 or 52 chickens at this point. Some are barnyard mixes just coming up on 6 months old that we're selling- last pullets we sold at this age went for $20 each at 5 months old. The rest are divided into a main flock of various types of hens with 2 roosters, and a second flock of gray Ameracaunas with a gorgeous gray and gold rooster.

We both give away eggs and sell them. In another thread, I estimated we got 85-100 eggs a week but I seriously underestimated. It's more like 175-200 a week, and some aren't laying yet due to youth, molting or keeping winter hours.

Hi, have one question. Do you allow your hens to go broody? If not how do you stop so many animals from sitting on eggs?

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

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.

Right now we have more than 30 animals (about 17 chicks some are a week old some are 9 weeks old).
We live in the countryside so we have no restrictions, and we'd like to have more animals; since some of the chicks are male, we will be selling them eventually when they're grown a bit more.
Hope you acheive your goal soon, good luck.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Do

Hi, have one question. Do you allow your hens to go broody? If not how do you stop so many animals from sitting on eggs?

I've almost 55 birds (admittedly, half are quite young, as I'm incubating and culling on a rolling basis). NONE of my birds have gone broody yet - or at least, none have shown that inclination and stuck if thru for the course. I had a Pekin duck go more than two weeks, but that's long short the month them need. Unfortunate, as it would save me a lot of effort and time incubating to maintain my dozen of so Pekins.

Breed has a lot to do with the tendency for broodiness.