Okay. Give me your good and bad integrating stories. I need some insight.
One of our neighbors has 3 hens about a year old. I think they are 2 RIRs and 1 leghorn (I think). He complains that they eat their eggs and he doesn’t interact with them much. They’ve just barely been aloud to come out of their tiny coop/run and free range the yard. He kept them locked up until a couple months ago. It breaks my heart he could keep them locked up in their small area. They’re chatty and come up to us when we talk to them through the fence. I don’t think they’re super tame, though. He talks about eating them because they don’t get enough eggs from them, (due to the hens eating the eggs.) I have a feeling he doesn’t give supplemental calcium. One of them is also looks to have bumble foot that I don’t think they treat.
We’ve considered offering to take one or all of them, possibly, and integrate them into our flock. I think he would go for it in exchange for eggs. Is this a bad idea? We have 4 hens right now that are 7 months old. So that would put us at 7 hens. We have the room and the time to dedicate to them. I just would hate for it to be a disaster and really stress out our girls. We have a 8x8 shed converted into a coop and a 20x8 run. We live in a small city with a medium size back yard ours “free range” in. So I think there’s enough room, at least. Maybe it’s not. Someone help me.
The animal lover in me wants to try to save these girls and give them a good life, but the other part of me says to not bite off more than I can chew.
Anyone have advice or stories about adopting more chickens? What amount of chickens becomes overwhelming to care for?
One of our neighbors has 3 hens about a year old. I think they are 2 RIRs and 1 leghorn (I think). He complains that they eat their eggs and he doesn’t interact with them much. They’ve just barely been aloud to come out of their tiny coop/run and free range the yard. He kept them locked up until a couple months ago. It breaks my heart he could keep them locked up in their small area. They’re chatty and come up to us when we talk to them through the fence. I don’t think they’re super tame, though. He talks about eating them because they don’t get enough eggs from them, (due to the hens eating the eggs.) I have a feeling he doesn’t give supplemental calcium. One of them is also looks to have bumble foot that I don’t think they treat.
We’ve considered offering to take one or all of them, possibly, and integrate them into our flock. I think he would go for it in exchange for eggs. Is this a bad idea? We have 4 hens right now that are 7 months old. So that would put us at 7 hens. We have the room and the time to dedicate to them. I just would hate for it to be a disaster and really stress out our girls. We have a 8x8 shed converted into a coop and a 20x8 run. We live in a small city with a medium size back yard ours “free range” in. So I think there’s enough room, at least. Maybe it’s not. Someone help me.
The animal lover in me wants to try to save these girls and give them a good life, but the other part of me says to not bite off more than I can chew.
Anyone have advice or stories about adopting more chickens? What amount of chickens becomes overwhelming to care for?
