Chicken thoughts

[frkelly74]

I have found that I am unexpectedly drawn out to watch the chickens moving around the pen. They are always doing something. Kind of like watching fish in an aquarium, I am fascinated with looking at them moving around, making their noised , interacting with each other. I am feeling a calm I have not felt for a while.

One neighbor a couple houses down came over and started asking me questions and ended up "loaning" us a brood box with 10 nest holes in it which is much nicer than the one I was planning to build. It's Something she dragged home at some point and had leaning up by her garage. She kind of went into a stare when watching the chickens while we were talking, even to the point of getting a little misty eyed.

My daughter got offered 8 more chickens free from someone who is not feeling the love, that are already laying eggs. She also has been asked if we are going to sell eggs. We cant count them till they are laid though.

[oneokie]

Nice.

[Chicken Thief]

It's like fire, hypnotic and never the same.
A soothing way to unwind.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

I find the same with a bee hive . . .

[shooter93]

Give chickens enough time and they'd scratch the whole world flat.

[oneokie]

Give chickens enough time and they'd scratch the whole world flat.

And almost defoliate it.

[DLCTEX]

My wife gets nervous when I mention getting chickens again. She thinks I get carried away. Don't know what gives her that idea, It was only a few hundred, not counting the ducks, geese, guineas, pigeons, and doves. Oh, and turkeys.

[L1A1Rocker]

I'm planning on getting chickens this next spring.

[Bret4207]

That misty eyed feeling goes away after you realize you'd need to sell eggs for about $2.50 a dozen to even begin to come close to paying their way. OTH, fresh eggs are 1000000000X better than those wimpy, miserable eggs you get at the store for 99 cents a doz. Bigger too. And knowing you can go out and grab a dinner on the hoof is nice too, even if it doesn't taste quite like that factory chicken you're used to. We're trying Chicken Cachitore (sp) later this week for something different to do with it. We have about 40 roosters ready for the pot and some hens that need culling.

BTW- go to www.featherman.net if you want to see the Cadillac in home processing.

[DLCTEX]

Bret, you haven't bought eggs in a while. They are pushing that $2.50 level now.

[firefly1957]

I do not have chicken but understand what you mean about watching them I have wild turkeys in yard often I have to use binoculars to see what it is they are darting after to discover they eat a lot of bugs out of my lawn. It is strange that they seem to like the sound of the radio whether it is talk or music it is becoming common to step out of garage/work shop and be startled at a group of turkeys just feet away.

[Bret4207]

Bret, you haven't bought eggs in a while. They are pushing that $2.50 level now.

Really? Saw them for 99 cents yesterday at our local discount grocery. Maybe it's a regional thing?

[leftiye]

Well, if the chickens get really used to you and friendly like, they'll hop up on yer knee and carp on you while ye're petting them. (Over the misty eyed thang yet?)

[garbear]

We have 14 hens. 9 are just starting to lay. the other 5 have been laying awhile. I have a mixed flock and some of tehm lay green eggs. I'll put my camp chair in the pen and watch thme for hours. The eggs taste awesome. Thinking about getting a few more.
Garbear

[Southern Son]

Our neighbour has a few chooks and the worlds worst time keeper for a rooster. I have noticed that it don't matter what time of day or night it is, the rooster will be crowing. I cannot hear it from our bedroom, but when I get up for a trip to the toilet, I will hear it crowing. Any time from midnight through to midday, and then from midday to midnight, it is going off. We give them scraps for the chooks and they give us eggs, but we are going to have to politely say no thanks next time, We have about two dozen eggs here at the moment. We just cannot eat them as fast as he gives them to us.

[Harter66]

The eggs and fertilizer are the best part of chickens I think. Garbage in eggs out. The fertilizer will even make our dirt productive for gardening. They will eat everything w/no ill effects that I ever saw,from grain to butchering scraps to spiders and snakes. Do be sure to get the pills for the water, its been so long I can't remember what they are, they're and anti-body sort of thing.

[pipehand]

Have a small flock of Buff Orpingtons. Pretty well rounded chickens- usta have leghorn/game crosses, sexlinks and Aracuanas with the odd RHode Island Red here and there. Their henhouse is an 8x16 x6foot tall chicken tractor, and they get to free range in the afternoons. Havehad to fencein the gardens, as they will sample everything. They do keep the bugs down though. Have a deal with one of the local grocery stores for bad produce- what the chickens don't get directly goes to feed
Black Soldier Fly larvae, which goes to the laying hens.

[justingrosche]

I have found that I am unexpectedly drawn out to watch the chickens moving around the pen. They are always doing something. Kind of like watching fish in an aquarium, I am fascinated with looking at them moving around, making their noised , interacting with each other. I am feeling a calm I have not felt for a while.

Frank, my friend, I think your cheese is sliding off your cracker a bit.

[frkelly74]

Well, if it goes completely off, the chickens will really enjoy it. ( The cheese , that is. )

Good to hear from you Justin.

[EdZ KG6UTS]

......My daughter got offered 8 more chickens free from someone who is not feeling the love........

When my daughter was in the 1st grade her class had eggs in a incubator so the kids could see the hatch/miracle of birth. Well, the hatch happened just before school let out for summer causing the teacher to panic about what to do with the chicks. We already had a flock at home so said yep, we'll give them a home. Turned out to be 10 roosters and two hens....at least looked that way. One of the 'hens' was an aricana rooster and the meanest attack prone chicken I've ever seen. Excess roosters eventually became BBQ, the flock became aricana/leghorn/Rhode Is Red mestizos and the aricana devil bird was eventually given to friends with more aricanas. Our flock was usually 20-25 birds but when job travel really ramped up I had to get rid of them. My new neighbor has a few hens now, reds, so I get eggs from him.

...I miss the bee hives too but wife became alergic.

EdZ KG6UTS