Why do you keep chickens and what got you into it?

[roaminggnome61]

There are many others on this posting that reflect my sentiments. I started thinking about having laying hens while discussing the tenuous nature of our economy with my best friend. She decided that she was going to buy some chicks to raise, but I didn't think that my DH would allow me to. Happily he didn't think it was such a bad idea, so I cranked things up into high speed and picked up my chicks a good month before my friend

I bought a small portable chicken tractor for my 10 Black Stars and then encased it in hardware cloth. We live in a rural area with lots of nasties....I loved having little peeps. That made me think that I would like to produce my own meat birds. Not letting anyone deter me, I picked up 15 meat peeps. My totally sweet DH helped me make a pen for these birds. I do not really like raising meaties, but I love the meat as well as knowing how they were raised. We had our last 2 for Easter dinner! As winter approached, I lay awake at night fretting about what to do with my hens. Winter in Northern Ohio can be harsh and the portable would not be sufficient to keep my girls protected. I finally settled on building a winter home for the hens. Oh how the Lord provides....my DH lost his job in the beginning of October ....what better time to get building. He was only unemployed for 1 1/2 months in which time he was forced into helping my poor hens. He built me a great coop! The girls moved in just before the weather turned really cold. We did not have enough time to put the trim onto the coop, but I plan to do it soon.
We are just starting our second year with hens. Because of the demand for eggs at my DH's place of employment, I have decided to max out my hens. I am going to construct one more portable and have on order enough hens to bring my total to 15. As for meaties I have ordered 30! I find great satisfaction taking care of the chickens. I thank them daily for giving us eggs. I find it such a miracle.

 

[newlyweds]

Great question:

I never had much interest in chickens, until about a year ago my In laws starting giving us fresh yard eggs from their RIR flock (they also raise game chickens, but don't eat the eggs). For about 6 months we had fresh eggs and I didn't buy one single store egg, I was hooked. So after much talk with the hubs I convinced him to let us have a few our my in law's chickens, they gave us 4. 1 RIR and 3 Game/RIR crosses. Then my FIL came across 5 White Rock Pullets, he gave us 2, but they were getting beat up so badly by the game crosses that I asked if we could swap the game crosses for the white rocks. It was instant harmony. And the chickens personalities really grew. Who knew, I surely didn't know chickens could be so much fun and full of personality.

Then this spring I talked hubby into getting me 2 EE chicks, he also brought home 2 pekin ducklings. Then we went back and got 1 buff O, 1 SLW, 2 more EE, and 2 BA. I love my chicks and ducks it has been so much fun raising them.

I also currently have 9 eggs in the incubator, the chicken bug has bit me big time.

Oh my chicken are purely pets (I could never eat them) and for the eggs.

 

[Flippacase]

Well, Last Summer I went on a student trip to China. On the trip, I saw many small villages where everyone had chickens, and they would run free throughout the towns. It was cool because nobody owned the chickens induvidually, they just were kind of there, walkin around. I just thought that having chickens in my town would be a cool change.

 

[indianporfavor]

my family owns some property where chickens just roam the streets, and one of the tenants left a couple couchs out back and a chicken was nesting in it and it needed to be thrown away so i caught the chicken, she ended up escaping before i got her in an old rabbit cage at the house but on the way home my dad had bought a feeder, waterer and some feed. So i had the supplys, and the chicken bug, and went out a couple days later and got me 3 chicks. and now i have 8

and im keeping them just for eggs.

 

[Dixiedoodle]

It's been an ongoing cycle of me wanting to provide more/much/most of my food. Since I LOVE to cook and use as much fresh and organic products as I can find or grow, I decided to grow my own.. I was having to grow more and more plants to get the same amount of produce. I finally realized there were NO honeybees and very few other bees to pollinate my garden, So, I started studying about beekeeping and got into bees.. Then, I decided to plant a small orchard, vineyard to help to keep my bees on my own property and away from too many chemicals-- and knowing it would take several yrs to produce fruit--I 'jump' head first into that.. After working on it for several yrs.. I decided I need my own manure for my growing compost pile to provide fertilizer.. We had cattle and I used that. Then one day when I cracked a groc. store egg and the yold looked almost cream. and the white was clear and runny. I thought that it was old, looked on the carton and found that the sell by date was 4 weeks from that day... FOUR weeks..Knowing it would take several weeks from 'farm' to store--that meant the eggs were already OLD.. So, I started studying egg production, egg nutrition and it went on from there. After reading, studying, trying to learn as much as possible, I found this site and I was addicted!! When my DH asked what I wanted for Mother's Day, I told him chickens and a coop...

It has been one of the best things I have done for my cooking, my compost pile and my garden/orchard and vineyard.. Not to mention ME... I love watching them, I love the eggs, I love the fact that my adult children and grandchildren are eating fresh eggs and have started to ask lots of questions about chickens/eggs and , food production

 

[3goodeggs]

I needed some fertilizer.

 

[MareeZoCool]

What got me started raising chickens?

A good friend decided I'd be great for the job; she brought me a box filled with 6 newly hatched Auracana chicks. I was hooked immediately! I sat & talked to my peeps for hours every morning.
My hubby, he took a few days to warm up to the idea. He worried about the work needed to build a coop and run. After a few weeks of sun sitting and chick adoration, he built a quick coop using pallets , chicken wire, & construction plastic wrap.It's been almost one year, and he's talking of adding a second floor to the coop! Our only problem is no extra money to buy the lumber & hardware.

 

[rebecky1305]

Had them as a kid growing up, then got married and moved into a mobile home park where they weren't allowed.

Got divorced.

and moved in 8 years ago with my very understanding and equally crazy best friend, who bought a house. We now have a zoo.

:

 

[Illia]

We started out here with chickens because we originally had them back in Utah for self-sustinence, but now we started again also to get some beautiful, rare breeds because we love them.

We got hatchery birds though, and didn't really find out until a year later that they're not the best choice to get. . .

So now, the main reason I have them is that I love them, really. I have a flourishing population of some amazing colored egg layers, rare breeds, and exhibition breeds. But really, they're all three of those.

I'm one for a beautiful chicken that lays a color of egg that will go good in my little "rainbow" of eggs, and it must also be rare or uncommon.

But of course, I still have my "average type" hatchery birds too - And I will continue to have them because right now they're my only ones old enough to lay eggs. Also, there are quite a few in there that I would never replace. But the Wyandottes. . . .

ssshh don't tell my family I said that. . . . I would rather have a prettier, friendlier bird that isn't so small, rangey, and unloyal to "boundaries." - Also, they lay small brown eggs. Rather boring.

In a nutshell, I keep them because I love them. I'm not looking for a super egg layer (which is why I don't have Australorps, BRs, BOs, RIRs, Sexlinks. . . ) and I'm not looking for a meat bird. I'll have plenty meat from culling out of the genepool.

 

[redux]

I saw a chicken coop on CL for $50. I thought - "huh. chickens."

The rest is history. I really, really loved having chickens.