How did yo get your start with chickens? was it all at once or did you start out with testing the water first? I think when we move I will be the go all out type person. I wold love to here how you all started out. Nancy
As a kid, I raised Black Tailed Japanese Bantams. Alaways wanted chickens after getting married. My wife knew that animals would be part of our future. When we finally purchased our current home where we can hav animals, I build our first Chicken Coop. Got 25 chicks with some meat birds. Wanted variety, wanted more, built the Silkie Chalet, then the brooder then started housing chickens in the barn, then built an incubator. Then got ducks and geese. What next??????
Got 4 week old chicks "gifted to us" last year-all smooth-then I found this website and my friend incubated eggs for me and now Ihave 2 of my own chicks-Then I went all out-fun -exciting-expensive-worth it----calming down now...phew I have 40 smething eggs in bator-first and last hatch this year for sure-
Went to our local farm store for seed potatoes to plant and heard the peepin'! Hour later we were home with 8 chicks and all the works to take care of them, oh and the potatoes!
Unfortunately I'm the 'all out' kind of person. I went to TSC and bought 11 chicks a couple days after I read a chicken book front to back. I then went a few days later and bought 6 more. As my head leveled a bit I realized that maybe I should have been sure of some of the breeds I had so I sold my oegbs and one cochin and bought 3 ameraucanas and 4 blrws... so that brings the count to 18. All between 5 days and 2.5 wks.
My family and I bought our dream home which happened to be an old farm house on three acers and it took about two years for them to convince me to get chickens. We started with 9 and now we have 50 laying hens, 1 roo, usauly have two pigs by now, 25 meat birds, 5 ducks, 50 pullet chicks, several barn cats, 1 dog and a house cat. So it does grow on you! Forgot to say I was born and raised a city girl!
About 8 or 9 years ago i looked through chicken catalogs for months till i ordered from i belive MM OR Ideal 25 st rare breed mix...Then i had to sell them after they started laying,cause we needed the money.But got lucky and her hens where all 8 years and older so i new mine would have a good long life...
I went from 0 to 18 chickens in mere minutes. They are 5 days old today. 4 RIR 4 Barred Rock, and 10 Ameracauna's.
So far I've just started reading this forum 2 days ago. My local feed store will have chickies in around 11 May. It's getting very tempting. However, my partner says no chickens we already have too many pets. Do I or dont I?
