Why did you start raising chicken?

[MakNugget]

It wasn't my idea. Actually, if you told me last year that I would be raising chickens soon I would say you're a funny guy/gal.

I was told/threatened/warned we were getting chickens at some point since some friends were sharing their experience of raising a backyard flock. Since I didn't know much of anything about chickens, I do my research on where/when to buy, and where to get information (here!) on chicken raising adventures. This went on a few weeks, then we found a local supplier and 80 bucks and a few hours later we had week old chicks and supplies in our living room.

Fast forward 6 months, untold sums of money to build a coop/run, and our first week of eggs from our alpha hen, here I sit, glad to have been involved in this journey. I wouldn't go back to not having them.

Now the problem is that I want more than I'm allowed. People think I'm nuts for having chickens...

 

[Bearing1]

MakNugget

Not here, you don't even have enough to be considered normal as yet.
I started with 25 without any thought as what to do with so many eggs
As for money spent I threw out all the receipts long ago. I can’t imagine what my first egg cost, maybe a cruise to the Caribbean. No regrets though way to much fun with the chickens.
A cheap hobby? not for me

 

[dsqard]

It all started by accident. My DH and I were transfered from AZ to UT for our jobs. I have owned horses for a while but I have never been able to keep them on our own property. When we were told that we were going to have to move, DH and I decided that we were going to have a piece of property big enough to have the horses on. After the house and the barn were built our neighbor's chickens discovered the barn and would come over each day and visit. We started finding eggs and the neighbors said we could keep any that we found in the barn. We usually found one a day and would save them up until we had enough for a meal. Those fresh eggs were wonderful. Well, the neighbors built a new pen for their girls and we stopped getting eggs. After "convincing" DH that we needed our own chickens, I went out and got our first four pullets. I got hooked on reading the information here on BYC and got hooked on the chickens. We are now up to nine chickens and are working on building a coop to hold them all. Right now I have them in two separate coops until I can get DH working on the big coop. If you had asked me a year ago if I would ever own chickens, I would have laughed and said "no". Funny how life goes some times.

Need to add that before I could buy the additonal chickens I had to admit to DH that getting more was for the entertainment value not for the eggs. LOL It is just the two of us at home since the kids are all out of the "nest".

 

[Judy]

Originally for meat and eggs. But there are chickens in the freezer and everybody here is buying store bought chicken. But we never buy eggs. We have trouble eating them obviously, though we do sometimes. And I have to give away most of the eggs, 2 or 3 dozen a week. They are going to worthy causes, though. At this point, the answer is, mostly for the entertainment value.

 

[AinaWGSD]

I'm not really sure. I guess the honest answer would be, because I can. I've always enjoyed looking at the chickens at local fairs, but never really gave much thought to keeping them. A few years ago (maybe 5 or 6 now) a friend of ours who lived in town got some javas. I thought they were pretty cool, and the thought of keeping chickens in town seemed novel to me, but didn't really give it much thought other than that. Then I saw more people while out walking the dogs who had chickens, still didn't think a whole lot of it. Then we made the decision that we weren't going to be moving any time soon, so we might as well buy a house. I wanted a house in Urbana, moving to Champaign wasn't an option. Mostly I wanted to be close to the farmer's market, but somehow the fact that chickens were legal in Urbana but not in Champaign appealed to me too. I didn't really want chickens at that time, but I did want that option if I so chose. Two years later (this spring), my husband and I were checking out the new Rural King store in town (Champaign, actually) and saw the chicks and bunnies. They had signs saying that the minimum was 25. As we were walking away from the pet department, my husband made the comment that 25 would be too many for our yard. I told him I thought the same thing, that 5 would probably be a more manageable number. That started the whole thing. We decided to research chickens, get a coop set up in the backyard, and order chicks next spring from Farm and Fleet (who has a minimum order of 6). I wanted the eggs (the eggs from our friend with chickens were the best I'd ever had), DH thought he wanted to raise some for meat. Well, for mother's day my husband got me the start of materials to build a coop. And by the end of July we had chicks. So much for next spring! We've had a lot of fun building the coop (ok, DH has had most of the fun building it, my main contribution has been design input and painting it) and run and we enjoy watching the chickens when we let them out in the morning and free ranging in the yard when we come home from work at night.

 

[Dora'smom]

I grew up in a little house with a yard that my grandfather had carved out of a corner of the family farm. My grandparents were right next door, and had lots of chickens---both standard and banty, and we always had fresh eggs, and fresh chicken. As time wore on, my parents bought the family farm, but my mother didn't like having the chickens, so she worked on my dad until gradually they were phased out. I missed them, and all the farm animals, and always thought about having some again.
A few years ago, I started seeing the large brooders of chicks at the feed store in spring, but we had no place to keep them, and all of the bins said "sold" on them anyway.
About two years ago, I started thinking about chickens again. I kept having dreams that we were feeding people. It happened that the husband of someone I work with owns the Urban Farm Store in Portland, and she showed me the website. We attended the chicken-keeping class, and started thinking seriously about doing just that. I called code enforcement in our city, to make certain what we could and could not do, and then we went shopping.
We found a great deal on a galvanized brooder, and that spurred us into action. We didn't do it the way we should have. We didn't have the brooder set up and warm for the chicks to come home to, but at least the weather was really nice and warm to transport them. We got four when we bought the brooder, as they didn't have the other breed we were looking for, and my husband went back a couple of days later, and got another two when that breed arrived. Then we got four more. Then, this spring we got six more, then another four. Chicken math, you know.

Currently we have a broody sitting on two remaining eggs, and we are hoping on having them both hatch, maybe Sunday or Monday.
Oh, and the dreams of feeding people have been realized. Yesterday I gave away 6 1/2 dozen eggs to family and neighbors. Tomorrow I will give away more. It is such a rewarding feeling to give away a really healthy, non-medicated protein-rich food to people.
Now we have to work on building more raised beds and the new compost bin to take advantage of all that nice organic fertilizer our girls are so generous with. Sustainability has become more and more of an issue since our girls came home. They are helping us to educate ourselves.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I wanted to garden and have the chickens eat the bugs. And have some eggs.

But now it has turned into
1. pets
2. oh they will lay some eggs one day, that's nice.

 

[Uzuri]

Just for the hell of it.

...

OK, to be more specific, we'd joked about getting them for years. One day I went with my friend to a women farmers' meeting. She had just gotten chickens, and the lady who had gotten her started was there. I said to my self "darn it, self, you're getting chickens" and I did.

This is my life, one impulse after another. At least this one seems to have gotten good results

 

[rebbetzin]

I have "farming genes" on both sides of my family. I have wanted to live on a farm for ages and ages. But... I don't think it will ever happen.

My reason for getting chickens was to have fresh eggs that I knew were "KOSHER'. Seeing how commercial egg farms are run, I couldn't in good conscience suport such inhumane treatment of animals.

Now I am confident the eggs I eat are from healthy and happy hens.

 

[woodmort]

Quote:
Thanks but if you mean me, if is either Mort, wood or Jim.