Topic of the Week - What is the purpose of your flock?

[Ponypoor]

I have a tiny flock of 6 in my backyard in Monterey Park, California, 5 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles. My urban ladies are first and for most pets. The eggs, garbage disposal, and poop for my compost to garden are fringe benefits.
I have so many eggs that I give them away to my coworkers and friends.
Pictured from front to back: Egggwina (Plymouth Rock), Eggwina 2 (Plymouth Rock), Hennifer the Little Red Hen (Rhode Island Red), Henrietta (Sexlink), Chicken Nugget (Delaware), Shelly (Sexlink), &
Chicken Tetrazini (Cochin).

How do you stop them from eating your tomato plants? I had to give up planting tomatoes! One day I found they had eaten all my tomatoes, leaves and all just left the stalks!!! They look at me as if to say hey mum we left you the rest of the plant.

 

[Ponypoor]

I love chickens, I love there personalities and how some look so odd. My flock of 9 are simply pets. Eggs might be a bonus but mostly we cook and feed the eggs right back to the chickens. Me and my boyfriend just love them and keep them solely for pets

How many do you have? Do you have photos?

 

[GoldenBlossoms]

How many do you have? Do you have photos?

I have 9 3 adult hens and 6 teenagers lol these are the most recent pics I took a few days ago x3

 

[Alexandra Runner]

I keep my flock for:
1. Eggs - this was my primary reason, and things grew from there.
2. Meat - this was what happened when three "pullets" turned out to be roosters.
3. Breed and sell - this is what happened when I decided to keep one rooster.
4. Bug control - my grasshopper population has never been so low!
5. Entertainment - more than enough said!

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

I have 9 3 adult hens and 6 teenagers lol these are the most recent pics I took a few days ago x3

Beautiful & spoiled!

 

[EuroChook]

To really annoy the unaccommodating neighbors who hate animals. But the reasons vary. My folks have been receiving chickens of welfare concern for some time. Mainly they have a good few hundred ISAs and leghorns, but others do come in. So it is like an ark of happy little misfits, a shelter, as much as a hobby farm with pretty good egg production.

 

[Hudsonsgirl]

Pets and egg production. We sel lmk the eggs. Our peafowl pay for their feed by the sale of their feathers. If they ever have offspring we will sell those. We don't eat anyone we know personally.

Could you take me through your process of collecting the feathers to selling?
This information would be so helpful as I have been trying to figure out how to make money to offset the cost of poultry raising. And they are spoiled...so. Lol.

 

[monicamarie83]

My boys think I've lost my mind when it comes to my chickens! But you know what? My mind is the reason I have them. I grew up on a farm, always around chickens but never liked them... Never had a want to have my own flock but here I am .... Obsessed over them! 3 years ago my life turned upside down. The love of my life was arrested and sentenced to 8 years in prison... I was so lost , so confused, so hurt, so depressed... The last 3 years have been nothing but a nightmare, one thing after another and nothing good... So I got my first batch of chickens , 3 silkies, and I found happiness again! They just bring me joy with a side of eggs! They keep me busy, sometimes too busy, but they are my therapy... I now have 28 chickens , had about 33 but illness is getting them! (That's my next post!)I hatch and sell my own chicks, make a little feed money , my youngest son loves to eat eggs so free food! I just keep getting more and more but the more I get... The happier I am!

 

[crazy chicken ladies]

Our reason started out simple... for the eggs. Egg prices seemed to be running a steady race with gas prices at the time, and we couldn't afford either one. Of course, little did we know that by starting with chicks, it would be a while before we started seeing eggs. Hey, we live and we learn. Then the egg prices started coming down, but by then we were in love with our girls. We'd watched them grow, got a few thru some nasty poop problems that almost took them from us, and ventured on with our chicken "tender" quest. Now our girls are at the age where they are ready to start presenting us with eggs. We spend evenings sitting outside chatting with the girls. I think they talk back, but we've yet to learn their language. They all have their own personalities...their own place in the rank. There are silly ones and grumpy ones and totally serious ones. And, we love them all for who they are. We love our first 6 girls so much that we recently went and got us 3 more babies that I think will simply be pets. Little Bantams who love attention and allow us to hold them whenever, unlike the gals in the yard.

 

[Kmaria187]

Why do I have chickens... a few years ago I talked my husband into letting me get 4 chickens. Why did I want chickens for eggs. Little did I know how much fun we would have. And I didn't realize we would have to wait so long for the 1st eggs to arrive. Once they started showing up and husband got used to our eggs the next year it was his idea to add 4 more chickens to our group. And so we started the process again of chicks to teenagers to egg layer's. They are all great company and they listen better than most kids do these days.
Then we lost two of our girls this past year egg bound and didn't realize until it was too late for them.
Then by a miracle I found a chicken wondering on our back fence have no idea where she came from but she came right to me and I brought her home. I tried to find out where she came from but didn't have any luck so she is now part of the family. Oh our back fence is next to a busy road and when I found her I actually thought she was one of our girls that had flown over the fence didnt realize she wasn't one of ours until I got back home. It was dark out and she came to me when I called so I just picked her up and put her in the car and drove back home. When I got back to the coop and the lights came on I was shocked to see that she was not one of ours at all!
So we are now back to 7 chickens. We get 4 to 6 eggs a day. I sell one dozen eggs aweek to my neighbor. And give another dozen eggs to my mom once a month and we still have plenty for us. So our girls are taking care of 3 families eggs needs.