Chickens

[OrganicAnn]

More and more people I know are raising hens for eggs - even in the city. Just curious to see how popular it is among the WTMers.

[Michelle My Bell]

I live in the city and had them last summer. My got eaten by "something" but I plan to make a go of it again in the near future.

[bluemongoose]

I am not in the city, but I have chickens. So far I have 10 hens and 2 roos that were supposed to be hens. They are not for eating though, just the eggs (we're vegetarians).:D

[Aggie]

We're live in the country and will have 10-15 before the end of the summer. Dh is building a portable coop we can roll around the yard.:001_smile:

[MamaT]

We don't have any right now, but we are considering it. We live in the country, so space wouldn't be a problem.

[DarlaS]

We hatched out 14 chicks this year (set 24 eggs, but 10 didn't make it for various reasons). They are now all 6 weeks old. I hope to end up with at least 5 - 6 hens worthy of keeping (healthy, friendly and good layers).

 

My mom kept chickens when I was a kid. I'm surprised it took us this long as we really are rural. Lots of "Farm Fresh Eggs" signs around here on every road. Just the same, I like looking out the window and seeing our very own.

 

Here are my two youngest enjoying their new "pets". They are fully feathered out birds now--but the kids still think they're "cute". :001_smile:

 

ETA: A little difficult to vote on this poll, but I decided I must have over 6 hens. (Only 3 act like roosters and they also happen to look like them.)

 

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2010 by darlasowders

[abbeyej]

We don't have any, but the family we school with two days a week has a small flock (5 now -- will be 8 soon). I don't think I'm in much danger of getting chickens, so we just appreciate theirs (and joyfully take whatever eggs they choose to give us). They're WTMers too, but not so much forum people.

[sparrow]

We live just outside of the city limits in a township. We have 6 ladies, as my ds calls them :D.

[susancollins]

We have chickens. We love our chickens they are so friendly. We love the fresh eggs. I have include some pics of our eggs from our Batnams, and our Golden Comets.

[Denisemomof4]

I put yes, we have over six hens, but we don't. :tongue_smilie: I used to have 12, some died naturally, most were eaten up by the wildlife. So we're going to get more this summer, but first I need to have an enclosed, safe outdoor area for them to spend daytime hours in. Our priority is getting the house painted, then we'll build our coop. I only want 6 hens this time, so I probably won't keep them in our large stalls in the barn. I also want to get 4 New Guinea hens to eat the ticks.

[FaithManor]

We don't have our chickens yet. But, we are getting the run and portable nesting house built. We will have six hens and no rooster. I have absolutely NO patience for roosters and this will be nice for the neighborhood.

 

We'll be paying a bit more for show chickens instead of the usual Isa Brown Pullets sold at our local farm supply store. However, we are claiming the 4-H education exemption for zoning and so we need to have animals that match 4-H show standards.

 

Also in our backyard are four show ducks. They are so much fun. But we had a tragedy this week...our female Australian Spotted bantam duck (a truly gorgeous creature with indigo feathers on her sides) choked to death. She was pigging down on her cracked corn and apparently got a hold of a piece of bark. It was lodged in her throat when dh found her but she was already gone.

 

Sniff, sniff, she was the sweetest animal and I loved her dearly. Oh well, that's life in the farm lane.

 

Faith

[Tree House Academy]

We currently have 14 Buff Orpington hens (our egglaying yard babies) and 34 Cornish X-Rocks (not for eggs...not something I am happy about!). Come June 14th, we will have 15 more Orpington babies, 8 Australorp babies, and 7 Wyandotte babies. These will all be yard pet/egg layers. All of our chickens are free range and put in the coop at night. Most of the buffs nest and lay eggs in our garage! LOL They stand and sqawk until I let them in and then they get in weird places like under my dh's tool box and lay eggs. Talk about right to the door service!

 

We won't begin to talk about the 15 ducks or the Angora bunny I am getting in a few weeks. :) Call me Ellie Mae..I love my animals.

Edited June 7, 2010 by Tree House Academy

[JoyfulMama]

I said we are considering, but the whole answer is actively planning. We hoped to be able to already in April or May, but DH's work hours increased, leaving no time to build safe shelter. We have fox and hawks, along with other predators, and I don't necessarily want to feed them.

Good news is we recently agreed to hire a teen to help here, which will leave dh with a bit more time to do some of these extra projects!

[Denisemomof4]

We're live in the country and will have 10-15 before the end of the summer. Dh is building a portable coop we can roll around the yard.:001_smile:

 

we did that. It was called a chicken tractor. Just make sure you don't put it on your grass. DRIED chicken droppings are GREAT manure. Fresh? They kill the grass. :glare:

[angela in ohio]

We live on an acre, and we have 6 Leghorns. Dh built a playhouse coop last year, and he is building them a tractor this year, so that they can travel around the yard and get more protein. They are too stupid and bright white to survive free range.

 

I have posted before about their super laying power. :D We get 4 to 5 dozen eggs per week.

 

We plan to replace these gals with something... smarter and nicer. :001_smile:

[coop]

We finally got our chickens this spring after talking about it for over a year!

 

We have 6 layers and 25 meat chickens. I'm hoping the meat chickens will end up in the freezer this weekend. This will be our first time butchering chickens so.....I'm hopeful that they will end up in the freezer and that we don't "chicken" out:lol:!!!

[Firefly]

We started with a handful of chicks just for eggs a few years ago. Now we have 16 hens. I think I need a twelve-step. :D

[elise1mds]

We got our dozen hens this spring - 4 Australorps, 4 Rhode Island Reds, and 4 Barred Rock Plymouths. They're a month old now, and I can't wait till they start laying!

[Susan in KY]

21 here: 6 New Hampshire Reds, 5 Australorps, 5 Araucanas, 5 Barred Rocks. It's a pretty flock! :001_smile:

[NCMom]

12 - Buff Orpingtons, Delawares, New Hampshires, Rhode Island Reds and 1 Black Star (or whatever you call it). We were supposed to get more kinds of standards and move into bantams last year but never got going on it mostly 'cause we buy only from breeders and it's hard to find really good flocks.

 

We are going down to SC soon to view 2 types of bantams we are wanting to try out - Millies and Sebrights. She has Wyandottes too - my middle is desperate to get some; she's been waiting over a year. lol

 

Chickens are so much fun! :D

 

Georgia

Edited June 7, 2010 by Georgia in NC

[myfunnybunch]

We have 6 hens right now, and got them before "city chickens" became extra-popular. We get 4-5 eggs a day, which is almost enough for our family. I only have to buy eggs every 3-4 weeks (from my sister, who has 40+ laying hens).

 

We've got 2 Buff Orpingtons (Big Mabel and Little Mabel, exactly the same size), 2 Wyandottes (Goldie and Petunia) and 2 Arucanas (Henny and Penny).

 

Our city had a 2-hen rule. It's recently been suspended because so few chicken owners were following the rule. Time to get a few more hens! :lol:

 

Cat

[CactusPair]

I don't have any chickens, but my brother's family does (they live in a rural area and have a lot of birds).

 

We get eggs from a lady who lives on the edge of town. She's often sold out, though. I think she does a brisk business.

 

Her eggs are delicious. For ethical reasons, I don't eat factory-farmed egss, though dh and the kids do. I really appreciate our neighbors homegrown eggs. Such a treat!

 

and minus the cruelty of conventional eggs.

 

If we had property, we'd have a few hens, too. I'd have to be able to protect them from our dogs, though.

[BridgeTea]

11 birds for us:

2 sweet banties who lay the cutest little eggs,

4 Freedom Rangers (who are meat birds, but I decided to keep them and see how well they do as egg layers - they have turned out to be good foragers and lay huge eggs!)

and the newest additions, 5 Golden Seabrights, which is a bantam breed. I didn't pick this breed intentionally, just bought some chicks because they were at the feed store and looked adorable. Looks like only one is a roo, so I was happy about that! Seabrights aren't supposed to be great egg-layers, I've learned, so they'll just have to be cute little yard ornaments.

[Dandelion]

We live in the country and have 7 hens (no roosters). Love those fresh eggs! :)

[LibraryLover]

I've had chickens for a few years now, and I have more than 6. And they are not all hens. :) I also have a turkey and guinea fowl. (Which i don't like, but which really do seem to help with tick control).

[StaceyinLA]

I guess nearly 12 years now! At most we've had around 30, but our average amount of layers is probably around a dozen. Right now I'm at ten layers and one rooster.

 

We really don't eat a ton of eggs so we share a lot, but I LOVE having my chickens. I also love that those free-range hens give me eggs with nearly orange yolks - SO different from that drab, barely yellow color you get from store-bought eggs.

 

We love our girls!

[Amber in AUS]

We are in the city and have 4 hens. They are producing just over 2 dozen eggs per week even coming into winter with shorter days. We can't keep up ATM! We love our hens and the kids dote over them. Our cat and dog are not bothered by them and don't try to eat them.

[Alenee]

We have 9 hens and a rooster...5 Buffs and 5 Ameraucanas. They're awesome! I waited for a long time to get them and finally got my wish about a six weeks ago. That also meant that I added another forum to my favorites list! :D

 

I was surprised when I went to our local feed store looking for water nipples. The girl had no idea what they were and thought that chickens would be too stupid to figure out how to use them.:glare: I've come to figure out that a lot of workers at feed stores don't know much about caring for chickens. I think chickens get a bad wrap. They're far smarter than most people assume.:)

[Peela]

The thing is, most people who have no interest in chickens wont even open this thread, so its not necessarily a respresentative poll.

 

I love our chooks- we have 3 at the moment. One died a few months ago. It took me a few weeks to notice there were 3 rather than 4 since the kids feed them and take care of them. Apparently one died and dh disposed of it and didnt tell me because he doesnt want me to go out and buy any more. But he knows...I will.

[IsabelC]

We currently have 13 chooks: 1 breeding rooster, 2 roosters being fattened up for roasting in a few weeks time, 7 pol pullets and 3 laying hens. We are about to give away five of the pullets to a couple of other families, so once we've done that and had roast chook day, we'll be back to the one rooster and 5 hens.

Edited June 7, 2010 by Hotdrink

[delaney]

Can't-HOA rules. But honestly I would never want to. :D

[Carrie12345]

I'm in the "want to, but can't" due to civic association rules. I've tried and tried to talk to my board (one member being a friend, and two current candidates being friends), but they look at me like I'm crazy. They don't get it.

 

Of course, I could own 20 cats and let them roam the neighborhood and nobody would say boo to me. :glare:

 

We've had our eyes peeled for new property for years. Zoning is always the first thing I look at. One day!

 

In the meantime, I read chicken and goat threads with as much interest and excitement as I do MCT threads. :D

[Matryoshka]

We don't have chickens at the moment, but we have two guineas, one of which is a hen and gives us eggs. We're not a big egg-eating family, but we had a chicken briefly last summer (long story - got her to console the male guinea who lost his mate when we couldn't find another guinea hen for sale), but then we had a massacre and everyone died.

 

We love our guineas and actually having that chicken was such a positive experience we've been thinking about getting one again - but we need a second coop first, as when they're not depressed, guineas don't tend to do so well in the same coop as chickens.

[Country Mouse]

We live in the country and have a small flock of 6 hens that provide us with an ample amount of eggs and entertainment :).

We let them free-range in the yard during the day and put them in lockdown overnight.

Funny story! My dogs apparently know our chickens versus other chickens. My dogs ignore our chickens. Our next door neighbor has a big flock and they let them free-range also. One of their chickens keeps getting through the fence into our yard and our dog chases it away!

[MomOfOneFunOne]

We do! We live right in the middle of the city and have 7 chicks. They are ALL supposed to be hens but we have a strong suspicion that at least one, and possibly two, are roosters. We don't know yet. It will indeed be a sad day if they turn out to be roosters b/c they'll have to go live in the country . . . w/ non-vegetarian friends. : (

 

We just adore the chickens! They are sweet and gentle and so fun to watch. I highly recommend it!

[TexasRachel]

We have 14? Hens and roosters. Started out with 25. But some were eaten. By us and something else. We do meat and egg chickens. I wish we could free range ours, but too many predators around here.

[ssmeest]

Love my chickens!

Started out with 6 chicks in summer 2008. Three were roos and one was killed by a dog. Traded one roo for a middle aged hen and sold the other two roos. Got 5 chicks last summer, 4 hens and 1 roo. VERY frisky roo that we had to sell or have naked hens. This summer, we've got 14 chicks. So far it looks like 3 roos, 7 hens, and 4 unknown. We'll have more eggs than we know what to do with.

[fairfarmhand]

We have 16 hens and a rooster. The older hens are orpingtons and will be headed for the stewpot soon. The younger hens are Silkies, Auracauna, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, and Speckled Sussex.

 

We live out in the sticks.

[jazzyfizzle]

We have 14 Rhode Island Reds and love them. :thumbup1:

[astrid]

Addicted to chickenkeeping here!

 

We live in a residential neighborhood of old homes and just adore our little flock of 8! Eggs only-- we've got the best retirement plan on earth! For their generous contributions to our diets over the years, our ladies live out their days happily eating and dust bathing and having a grand old time.

 

astrid

[OrganicAnn]

Thanks for all the replies. Very informative.

[Vanna]

Oy, I see all the "trouble" people w/hens have to go through with caring for them, housing them, protecting them (sometimes unsuccessfully) from predators. Just not my cup of tea.

[myfatherslily]

No interest in chickens whatsoever, although I could have them if I wanted to.

[Susan in TN]

We got our chicks about 2.5 years ago. When we were planning to move, we checked the local regulations and got permission from the city to bring our chickens with us. They have a few more strict rules than our previous location, but we were happy they allowed us to keep them.

 

We've never had an ounce of trouble from them, although they are not free range - per city's regulations - and so they are a little safer from predators. We have a nice little fox family that hangs around here.

[HappyatHome]

We have 6 full grown hens and just received 22 chicks last week which we managed to get one of the hens to adopt (hurray!). Love our chickens here! We live in the country on 5 acres.