What hooked you on chickens?

[ams3651]

My grandfather had chickens when I was young, and a turkey, guines (sp?), pheasants, ducks. Now that I live on my other grandparents land I want to do as much for myself as I can, including a garden and apple trees my grandfather planted a long time ago. My young son has food issues because of meds and eats alot of eggs, my mom has cancer and eats as much organic as possible and at the end of the month when food and money are low, what cant you do with eggs!

I also want my sons to have the experience of raising animals. I would so love a goat or sheep but its beyond my budget.

Im just a farm girl at heart and I love it all.

 

[sundance]

I was told Icouldn't have chickens, and being a crabby old woman I had to have chickens. Now I love both the ladies and their eggs.

 

[chcknrs]

I grew up with chickens, pigs, horses, cows, etc. We lived on 600 acres and as I got older I really missed country life, especially fresh food! When we found this place, I told my husband I needed a chicken coop and of course, he put it off until I went and got chicks! Wanted goats for all the blackberries here, and he put off the fence......hehehe, I just scored 2 free fainting goats from Craigslist! Now I need another coop so I can get MORE chickens!

 

[barnevelderdec]

fo rme it was all of a sudden having space. i was in tow one day and a woman was swlling chooks out if her van i brought home 2 and went on from there

:cd:cd

 

[starshrike]

When I was a kid we used to get fresh eggs & chicken (freshly frozen, never witnessed a killing!) from a store with my grandma. There were a couple instances where I saw them have a box with a lamp in the corner and I went to investigate - low and behold, CHICKS! Of course I had to have ONE, but that ONE needed TWO OTHERS for company - so I ended up with three!

Unfortunately, my family wasn't prepared when I brought them home and when I let them outside one day in a pen - two escaped - so I was only left with one. Later on my chick grew into a pullet (White Leghorn) and provided us with many eggs and constant egg hunts (she was free-range). She was great with the bug control and even came when called. If there was a bug in question, I'd call her over, pick her up and she'd peck it away

Now that I'm done with school and more or less settled, I'd like to get chickens again - for the delicious eggs!

 

[JustChicky]

I love all animals and wouldn't turn any away, but I have been truly obsessed with chickens since this January when I found out you can order almost any breed of chicken online from hatcheries, like Ideal. That is too easy (except the waiting part

). Needless to say I ordered immediately. And yes, I can't wait to get more. No, I will never have too many.

I never thought I would like anything more than bunnies, but I think I LOVE chicks. I even think they are cute when they poo. Sometimes they do this tweet-tweet thing and scoot backwards

.

I can't wait for fresh eggs and meat.

 

[Ace_king_brahma]

My family had silkies when I was real young and remembered them a little. I do recall they attracted a partridge rooster out of nowhere who was a troublemaker. And eventually my parents gave all the birds back to the family friend who gave them to us. I grew up and bothered my parents for pets and had a hard time getting the cats and finally my first dog. I would house some of the pets in the old hen house and over time I kept thinking about the chickens.

I bugged once more but kept getting solid rejections on getting more chickens. Finally in high school I took metal fabrication and since we had to do ag related projects as part of the class grade I was able to get my first chickens that belonged to just me. I was hooked since! My family even got into it. My Dad bought birds for me and himself and then my Mom was excited and bought some for herself to add to the flock.

 

[Dawn419]

Hello! My name is Dawn...and I am Chicken Obsessed!!!

It all began for me as a child. My aunt lived behind us on a mini-farm. She had two horses, a ewe, a nanny goat and a flock of Easter Eggers. I helped take care of her "farm" during the summer and was captivated/fascinated with those colorful little birds that layed blue/green/pink eggs.

I graduated high school, joined the Army for a couple years and never once thought about chickens...

I moved to TN in March 1987, married my ex in October of '88 and we moved to a 75 acre farm a month later. He decided we should keep chickens, so while he was at work his daughters and I made a run, for a pre-existing coop, out of whatever we could find on the farm. We had a nice mixed Standard flock that we found from an ad in the paper. He and I divorced a year later and I had to leave the birds behind.

Skip and I met in 1994 and have been together ever since. When we got our first place together, we adopted Zebra Finches from a friend who could no longer keep them. Then we took in another friends parakeet and adopted a few more parakeets and then the Cockatiel. Between the birds, my houseplants and 3 fish tanks, we lived in a jungle when we lived in town.

We moved to our little slice of rented, rural heaven 7 years ago with only the Cockatiel left. We also had an outdoor rabbit. When the neighbor found out we had one rabbit, he went and rescued about 25 more and gave them to us, over the period of a summer. We were lucky enough to be able to sell most of them off to good homes and get down to a comfortable 7 rabbits.

A few years later, Skip found a deal on a female Sun Conure. We brought her home and she was Skip's baby, big time!!! Then he started working an odd-houred second shift job and didn't have time for her. Now she didn't care for me to begin with and her not getting her "Skip time" made it worse. It got to where I couldn't walk past her cage without her aiming and sh*****g at me...I'm serious!!!

After 2 weeks of that nightmare, I told Skip that I was fed up! We needed to find her a good home because if I was gonna be stuck cleaning up sh** from a bird, I wanted eggs, too!

I've been happily chicken addicted since my first day olds arrived on May 14th, 2007!

Thank You All!!!

Dawn

 

[tx_dane_mom]

My husband thought it would be a good way to get me started in 'farm life'....boy I bet he regrets that now!

Now, I use it as my back-up for my dog addiction. I can't possibly have every breed of dog I want, so instead I get every breed of chicken I want b/c If I hatch out too many they're totally easy to resell. And my husband knows when puppy fever is really bad b/c that's when the house becomes overwhelmed w/chicks

 

[Dawn419]

Quote:

I love it!!!

I've always wanted horses and remind Skip of that often...the chickens always win that one!

Dawn