How did you get started raising chickens?

When I was small my grandma's neighbor had a variety of chickens and I was fascinated with them. One day the lady gave me a box and in it was a little black cochin hen setting on eggs. That hen and her chicks were my start. The box had Percy Kent written on it which I found out later had something to do with a cigarette brand. I just though she wrote the name of the hen on the box. I called her Percy Kent. That was 45 years ago.

Other than while in college and a few years after, when I didn't have my own place, I have had some bantams and guineas.

 

i started growing my own veg a few months ago. i bought a magazine called grow your own veg. they have a regular feature on chickens and i became interested that way. i then did some research and built my own coop and run i bought 3 bantams 3 weeks ago and have loved every minute of it since.

 

Back in '07-'08 we decided that being as food self sufficient as possible was probably in our best interest. Chickens seemed like a good place to start learning about livestock.

 

ticks....

I have 9 dogs and live in a tick prone area... most nights I pull at least 4 or 5 ticks off the dogs... We are vegetarians so we don't eat chicken so that is a non issue... my husband has a friend with chickens so we get our eggs from him so eggs are nice but not the primary reason and honestly this has gotten rather expensive just for eggs... BUT for us it is all about tick reduction....

 

This is my first post on the forum. I'm excited to have found the site.

When I was growing up both sets of Grand parents raised chickens. They had pretty much given up on them due to age by the time I was a teen so I didn't get to learn a huge amount about them. They did fascinate me though. Last year we decided that we needed to start raising some animal to complement our gardens. We figured chickens were probably the easiest and cheapest way to get started.

We went with Buff Orppingtons for multiple reasons. They are good (not great) egg layers, very large birds for meat, can tolerate both heat and cold which we get here, they go broody pretty easily, & the hens make great mothers. Our thoughts were with a small flock, we could raise a few groups of chicks a year and enlarge our flock pretty easily if it was needed.

 

My grandparents always had a farm. Cows, pigs, chickens, corn, ducks, turkey, ect. I loved how simple life seemed on their farms and how if need be they could survive with what they have. After growing up in the Chicago burbs ( which I hated) I finally moved to the country to a couple acres. My originaly goal was to head in the direction of being self sustainable. So of course I started with a garden and chickens, the ducks kinda just came to be lol, I have also built a goat pen so next on the list is a couple goats. My chickens are livestock to me, they are not here to be my pets. they are here to provide eggs, meat, and babies to continue to generations and to make some money back on the feed.

 

My wife and I bought an old farmhouse with 3 acres and an old barn, seemed like chickens were a good idea to put in there. That was 12 years ago, and 25 chicks. It was fun while it lasted and life got in the way. Now that we have kids, we figured it would be a good learning experiance for them. So now I have 29 more.

 

My husband got a call about a down machine at a chicken processing plant. (He works in hydraulics) He was there for 3 days but after the first hour he called to tell me to order the chicks, I had been wanting.

It was six months or more before he would eat chicken again. Nothing like seeing where your food comes from.

 

Soon after moving here from a Philly suburb, I thought it would be fun to keep a few chickens for fresh eggs and to teach the kids about life and responsibility and such. Only ever had a few at a time. The kids are grown now but my grandson like to visit with the chickens when he comes by. I only have 3 brown hens now but that's enough. Someone in the neighborhood has a rooster but I don't know who. He crows all day long though. I don't mind a bit.

 

Well it all started with a homeschool project May1,2010.We thought it would be a awesome experience for our boys 6yr old and 8yr old.They kept notebooks, collected data , noted each time we turned the eggs and keep notes on the development of the chicks when we candeled them. We borrowed a friends incubator , got 12 fertile (Hopefully)chicken eggs from a local feed store and begain the long wait for the hatch. On May 27th we became owners of 7 baby chicks The 5 eggs that didnt hatch where not fertile a relief to us that we had not did anything wrong. Out of the 7 chicks we had two roosters that we had to find new homes for because of our zoning. We had them long enough for the boys to see the roosters interact with their hens, protecting, finding food for them warning them about hawks. All noted in the boys notebooks afterall this was a school project. It was a sad day when they left. Next project after hatch was to build the coop and run which the boys had a blast doing. Now 2yrs later we have a little broody hen so we got her 3 easteregger chicks and 1 silky to raise. She is doing great with them. Their 4weeks now. Were crossing our fingers that we get hens.

 

I didn't know I was a country girl until we bought a place with 2A and a 2 story garage (barn.) Bought some chickens for food and eggs and never looked back!

 

We had chooks when I was young - lived on 5 acres. When my husband and I moved to our "weekender" farm permanently over 5 years ago the first thing I got was chooks. Just love them and their personalities - could watch them for hours!

 

When I was growing up we had chickens, pigs, horses, goats, rabbits, a garden and so on. After a bad marriage I went back to my mothers place where she had chickens and turkeys. I spent almost all my time with them and they made me happy. I am now in a new relationship and we are planning to get some chickens and I hope turkeys also a couple of goats for milk and cheese to go with those wonderful eggs. Even though I make them my friends I have to remember they will also be DINNER someday. We have a very limited income and it is hard to get started with the price of wood and fencing so it is taking longer then we had hoped. My mom got rid of her chickens, ducks and turkeys so she is giving me all the feed and water containers so that is alot of help there. We are hoping to get enough chickens to be able to sell eggs to buy there food.
Thank you for being here and giving me ideas on what type of chickens and what kind of coop I should go for. I wish I could find a site for turkeys and goats also. Anyone know of any? Please let me know.

 

I grew up on a faarm in northern lower Michigan, My great uncle lived a ½ mile away, and he raised chickens. Been around them all my life.

When we bought the house here, there was a small shed we turned into a coop. Have had chickens ever since, between 8 and 150.....

We raise for eggs (we eat a LOT of homemade pasta) and I sell enough eggs to pay for the feed (bought at a local grain elevator for $10/50#), plus freezer camp for however many cockerels we get....

MMMMM home grown, homemade chicken noodle soup, with noodles made with your own eggs, and veggies out of you own garden is the best!

 

For us, we'd been eating a lot of eggs and the price of "store bought" brown eggs here is quite expensive. Plus, the house we rent already had a set up - chicken coop w/pen (very nice and secure). That along with my love for animals/birds. I started out by looking on Craigslist for Chicks.....one purchase lead to another and another and another.....lol. I now have 13 breeds of chickens totaling 57 chickens! I do have a few roosters that I will be letting go.... keeping only 5 for breeding purposes. All of my chickens were purchased 3 days to 6 weeks old. I wanted them all to grow together and get along with each other and so far.....success! I have just a few more weeks to start seeing some eggs, YAH!
My Chickens:

• 3-Langshans, 2-RIR (18 wks/4 1/2 months)
• 2-Maran, 2-Barred Rock, 2 Tetra Tint 1-Barnevelder (15 weeks/ 3 1/2 months)
• 11 Buff Orpingtons at 12 wks/3 mo.
• 6-RIR, 6-Americauna/Golden Comet mix (10 wks)
• 10-Silkie (8 wks- 16 wks)
• 1-RIR, 2-BB RED, 3 Millie Fleur Serama, 3-Silver Laced Sebright, 3-Campine (6 wks old)

Gotta Love CHICKENS!

 

When I was young we had 2 broiler houses, 12,000 in each house. I hated chickens. When I got older I tried just free range chickens (before they were called free range) I liked seeing them around and the bugs were a lot less having them run around. When you crack an egg and see that bright golden colored yoke, you know why you have chickens.

 

I thought I would get a few hens so that I could have fresh eggs. I started with a couple buff orpingtons and got a few easter eggers and a couple Cayuga drakes. Now I have several different breeds of chickens, ducks, geese and a few turkeys. We have enlarged the chicken coop twice. I have olive egg layers, Silkies, Polish, Cochin banty and full size, Easter Eggers, Black Alstralope, buff Orpingtons, Barred rocks, Lt. Brahma, Kucoo Maran. Khaki ducks, buff ducks, Rouen, Mallard, runners, Mag pie, Peking and Cayuga. 1 Buff goose, 2 Chinese, 2 African and 2 Embden plus 3 broad breasted turkeys. Quite the flock but I love them.

 

I have lived on our family's 500 acre farm for my entire 50 years. I'd always worked in office management and had been at my job for 20 years. When the economy tanked I was downsized out of a job right along with thousands of others. I'd been a farmer kid my entire life and if I had this major life change drop at my feet I figured I'd might as well open the door when opportunity knocked - I had the time and the room. Plus I figured if we really were plunged into a depression (as was speculated at that point), we'd have eggs and chickens to eat if we were hungry.

I started with 12 chickens and added a dozen here or there. After 4 years I have 68 chickens, 2 beehives, multiple fruit trees, etc. Never been poorer, but never been happier. LOL

 

I had chickens as a kid. So i got 4 chickens last year hoping to get at least 3 more next year