tell us how you got into chicken raising

[EllyMae]

It's genetic..lol. Farming is in my blood that goes back many many generations.

 

[brandywine]

I have never wanted anything so much as to have a farm and livestock of my own. From birth.

Unstable childhood, then college, grad school; I finally got MY dog in grad school, and a cat to keep her company, the same week we were engaged. Gardened all the time, even if it was just a pot on the balcony, I was always growing food.

Marriage. Two years living in Boston, two years in a near suburb of Pittsburgh, then our own house in a sprawlburb. More dogs, and extensive vegetable and fruit plantings. We ate something from the garden almost every day of the year. Put up epic amounts of marinara, vegetables, fruit.

I could have had a few poultry in that home, but one of my dogs would have lost her sanity. She was the dearest creature on the planet, a brilliant working dog, saved human lives in her long and honored career -- but also a fully-functioning predator. She'd have turned herself inside out not to eat Mommy's birds, and it would have driven her off the deep end.

But for years there was a McMurray catalog in the bathroom magazine rack. Livestock porn.

Mel passed last year, leaving a blast crater in my heart, and in the universe; at the same time, the developers leveled the woods and open space that had made that place tolerable. We started looking for property. My friend the witch doctor said "Mel left now to make a way for the change that is coming. It's time for you to do it."

We're now on 26 acres, with a barn and pastures and hayfields.

When our house in sprawlburbia sells, I'll have the capital to improve the fences and bring in sheep, later a small cow.

But I didn't need a big nest egg to convert a stall in the barn into -- well, an egg nest.

So there are fifteen pullets, a putative roo, and eight guineas out there now. Our first livestock. I'm shocked at how much I like them. Cannot wait for them to bear hen fruit.

 

[Fast Chick]

Like a lot of folks my grandparents had chickens so I was around them as a kid. My husband was never really around farm animals except as a rare visit to a farm as a kid.

When I started talking about getting JUST 3 laying hens my husband was luke warm to say the least. :|He tried to derail my plans by saying if I was going to build the coop where I wanted it then it had to have an eco roof he could plant stuff on. Well, the weekend building project took me months to finish, but I did. Just as I was getting ready to start putting the run together the hubby says, "Well, if we're going to have chickens lets get some ducks to."

Ok, so add a wing on to the coop and double the size of the run. THEN he found my McMurray catalog! Oooh crap, then he started talking about the kinds of chickens HE wanted.

I ordered 25 chicks and 11 ducklings knowing I could sell the extras. My intention was to keep 3 hens and 3 ducks. The husband was admant about not putting up with a rooster. That was until he started playing with the free exotic chick that was a roo of course. There was no way I could get rid of his guy, they'd bonded.

And somehow the 3 hen chicks I'd banded to keep became 5 banded chicks and 5 ducks.

Not long after he discovered the feed store gives away roo chicks!

Now we have 5 hens, 5 ducks, 3 roosters and I'm building a third coop to accomadate the japanese bantams the hubby wants desperately.

 

[coffeemama]

My great aunt and uncle had bantams when I was really little. When we would visit, I had the welcome task of gathering eggs every morning in a little wire basket. When I turned 18 and moved out of my parents' house, I got my very own chickens. They were a mix of bantams. I had to sell them all when I moved, but inherited a flock of bantams with my house 5 years ago. We love our chickens

 

[Godsgrl]

This is an interesting thread. I never thought in a million years I would have chickens. Then one day I saw some chickens in my neighbor's yard. The neighbor is very picky about her yard-flowers and such. So when I asked her about the chickens, she said they were messing up her yard, and they were going to shoot them.

My nephew was visiting at the time, and he said he knew how to care for and catch these chickens. So we went over there, and he caught all the loose chickens. I didn't have anywhere to keep them, so we took them to a friend's house who did have room. The rest is history! On a web search, I found this site, and have been happy ever since!