Adventures with Backyard Chickens

When people toss around the phrase “Empty Nest Syndrome” never in a million years did I think I would be filling that nest with actual birds…chickens to be exact.

I have looked at the cute little chicks in the local farm stores for a couple of years now and wondered about bringing them home so I could raise my own farm-fresh eggs. I even bought a book called “Backyard Chickens” by Martha Wyse, which I didn’t actually read until I was on the airplane during spring break. My husband Tom read it too and what we discovered was that there is a lot involved in raising chickens and that it is not something to be taken lightly. This book describes the good, bad, and ugly in regards to raising chickens (Pasty butt condition anyone?)  So after reading the book we decided that maybe chicken farming wasn’t for us. Then Tom talked to a guy at work who said “It’s easy! Just build a coop and let ‘em go!” And we were off. Now we have this really excellent coop and Tom has made a big feeder and watering tower.

We are learning as we go along. First of all we learned that if the coop box says “5-7 chickens” what it really means is “3-4 chickens” because while 7 chicks fit nicely in our coop, when they got to be what we call “teenagers” it became quite crowded and we had to adopt-out 3 of our girls. http://www.backyardchickens.com/ is a good one. I learned that you can sprinkle a neat mix of herbs in their roosts to keep the bugs away while old-fashioned fly paper is a necessary evil for the ones who continue to come around. I also planted mint and lavender around the coop, which should help too. And did you know that you can train chickens to come when called? You can! You use chicken treats (a.k.a. birdseed and dried meal worms). However, if you are going to feed the girls treats you need to remember that they have to have grit to digest it. This revelation resulted in a panic-stricken run to Gruler’s to get a bag of grit. Also, chickens, like children, get bored and peck at each other if not kept entertained.

Second, chickens smell and they attract flies…lots of flies. Fortunately there are hundreds of blogs that literally answer any chicken-related question you might have.

Probably the most surprising thing we learned was that we wouldn’t bring home the chicks and wa-la! We’d have eggs. Nope, they apparently don’t start laying for about 6 months. I’m still not sure what pullets, brooders, or bantams are, but I’m learning. We are enjoying our new adventure with Gerrie, Betty, Lola, and The Brown One. Even though they haven’t filled our empty nest with eggs yet, they are helping to ease the transition into sending our boys into the world with a new adventure.