Talk is Cheap for this Backyard Chicken Farmer

This past May, I was talking tough about what it takes to be a backyard chicken farmer. Turns out, talk is cheap. My flock put me to the test these past several weeks as I tried to integrate young pullets into my established flock. To say it didn’t go well is an understatement. I’ve introduced chicks previously and it’s never been without its share of difficulty, but it has never been like this. This year I was reluctant to introduced 4 more chicks into my existing flock of 3, but my husband convinced me that we need to keep rotating new pullets in as the older hens slow down their egg production. After a quick trip to the farm store, in which I got to pick out the cute little peepers, we set them up in the basement and waited for the weather to break and for them to get big enough and feathered enough to join their adopted sisters. Not wanting to relive the trauma of having the older birds attack the little ones, I sought advice from a backyard chickens website. Contributor after contributor wrote about how easy it was to integrate babies in with the big girls and how nobody has ever had a problem…except me. What I read was that as long as the chicks were still peeping (not clucking yet), that the other birds would accept them. I seem to remember this particular advice NOT working in the past, but hey, I have to introduce them at some point, right? I kept the girls in the same coop, but separated by a rock, hoping to let them get big enough to protect themselves before removing the rock. Unfortunately, one morning the rock fell and all heck broke loose. To save you all of the gory details, one of the older hens had to be removed from the flock and rehomed. When the day came to get her all caged up and ready to transport, I had a flawless plan. I would simply throw her favorite dried mealworms into a dog kennel, she would trot right in, I would slam the door behind her, and we’d be off. Unfortunately, she had a different idea of what was going to take place, and getting into that box was not part of her plan. What followed was a series of attempts by me which included that dog kennel, about 3 cups of bird seed/mealworm mix, a cardboard box, a large beach towel, 3 videos and an article on “How to Catch a Chicken,” an apple, and another kennel. After about 2 hours total, I finally, and humanely got my hen into the back of my car with minimal stress for either of us. Truth be told, I could have grabbed her, but I was scared she would turn around and peck me. That’s right. The big, bad backyard chicken farmer is scared of her own chickens. Like I said, talk is cheap and if you’re looking for advice on raising backyard chickens, I find the internet is a great place to find all sorts of helpful advice.

Musings of a Backyard Chicken Farmer

When Chick Season arrived at the area farm stores, my husband, Tom informed me that we would be getting more chicks to add to our flock of 3. I resisted the idea because, in my professional chicken-farming opinion, our coop is too small to handle 7 full grown hens, and honestly, I just didn’t feel like getting more. Even though I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt, (really, I have a t-shirt that says “Backyard Chicken Farmer”), doing the work it takes to raise chicks and then integrate them into the flock seemed daunting to me this time around. Perhaps it’s because I have a lot going on this spring, or maybe I just know what 7 chickens crammed in that coop will look like in the middle of January. I got into this whole thing a little bit, ok, a LOT naive about what it really takes to be a backyard chicken farmer. I learned rather quickly, that taking care of chickens is a bit more involved than taking care of say, a cat. I’d like to share a few pros and cons about raising hens that you might not know.

Pro- Fresh eggs. We have an abundance of eggs! They are rich and beautiful and delicious. I know what’s in them and how long they’ve been around.

Con- Eggs can be tricky. Sometime they are laid with thin, rubbery shells, and sometimes they are laid with no shell at all. When that happens, you have to figure out what’s going on and why so you can correct it. It can be a system of trial and error.

Pro- Chickens are entertaining. I could sit for hours and listen to them murmle and interact. They seem to discuss the goings on of the coop and when something new arrives they are curious.

Con- Chickens are animals that get sick sometimes and die. I started out naming them. In our first round we had Betty, Ruby, the Gerries, and Lola. First Gerrie died a mysterious death. Then Ruby (my favorite) got sick and died, then one of the brown ones, (after I stopped naming them), became a fox’s dinner in broad daylight. I’ve had to clean dried egg off of vents, which is just gross. It is. I realized that emotional detachment is necessary in farming.

Pro- They are pretty self-sufficient. We can go away for the weekend and they are fine with plenty of food and water. Eggs tend to pile up but it’s not a big deal because they don’t have to be refrigerated.

Con- They are dirty and buggy and they can devour the blueberries from 6 bushes in a matter of moments. When you free-range hens, expect some damage to foliage.

All-in-all my chicken farming experience has been a positive one and I’ve learned a lot. I wear that t-shirt proudly. And if you’re wondering if we got the chicks, they are in a dog kennel in my basement happily kicking wood chips everywhere. I call them “The Peepers.”

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.