Backyard Chickens

  • Thread starter Thread starter jjdrury81
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
jjdrury81 said:
Does anyone have any experience?

We just put on hold a Black Australorp, Buff Orpington and a Rhode Island Red.

We will be getting them on the 24th. Me and a buddy of mine are building a coop.

I will post pics of the chicks when we get them.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cyfBSaIN_wo/S2bolKUf1uI/AAAAAAAAABY/0K2XNBBWR6M/s320/100_1460.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cyfBSaIN_wo/S2bokvVGrOI/AAAAAAAAABQ/_GOoEULpZI0/s320/100_1461.JPG
Click to expand...
This is the coolest thing ever 🙂
I have a plan to buy land, build a cob house with solar, grow my own food, get a couple of horses (so they won’t be lonely), a couple of cows, and have chickens.
I guess I want to play “little house on the prairie” 🙂
Keep updating us on your chickens 🙂
 
Thanks for the answer but now that I think of it—why wouldn’t I have eaten a rooster. I eat a Tom at Thanksgiving right?

I have a coup in the back of the acres but have never had chickens. I love fresh eggs and so will definately toddle on down to the chicken farmer and buy some.

I will also try to find some goose/duck eggs too. I will have to keep checking back to see how your flock is doing. Enjoy!
 
Make sure your fencing is dog & raccoon proof. Those are the main predators of chickens. Feral cats can be a problem, but most cats respect a hen’s beak!

You’re going to love those biddies. There is no way that home-grown eggs are cheaper than supermarket eggs, but they are more tasty & much more satisfying to the soul. :angel1:

If you still have questions about chickens, go to the Poultry forum of HomesteadingToday.com. Hope to see you there!
 
I am so interested in this article. I too, have been tossing the idea around about raising my own chickens for eggs. The cruel and inhumane way these animals are treated and fed sheds light on the fact that their eggs are of poor quality. I love the idea of free range. The way it should be. My only problem is predators and baby-sitters!. We live in the country and have 10 acres that I desire to do something with. I pray and listen every day for answers or signs as to what I should do! Being self-sustaining would be an awesome, healthy option. I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck! And by the way TMI Monicatholic!
 
We have a small backyard flock of 11 hens and one rooster. They have a secure coop, and an attached dog kennel that they can roam into. We open the gate to the kennel each day and let them roam, and they will come and go depending on the weather. I think a rooster is important if you are going to range them at all. A good rooster will keep track of the hens, keep them within their boundaries and warn them and help herd them back to the coop if a predator is nearby. We are going to be adding another rooster and probably 6 more hens to our flock this spring.

My favorites are the Americaunas, because of the colored eggs, and the barred rocks, because they are friendly and pretty. 🙂 We also have buff orpingtons, australorps, and one lone rhode island red. The ones we are adding this spring are Buckeye chickens. I usually try to buy heritage or rare breeds.

We sell a few eggs, but mostly we freeze the extras for use when the laying slows down. They work great in baking and omelets.
 
It bears remembering that if you are within city limits, it may behoove you to check with the city code as to whether or not you may keep chickens, ducks, etc. Some cities have regulations that would prevent maintaining any, or only a limited number. Also be on the lookout for rules that may not specifically restrict them, but would prevent you from having or maintaining anything which can attract vermin - as in rats and mice.

In addition, if you live in a homeowners’ association, they may have regulations that would prevent having them, even if the city code allows them.

I am all for having a small flock; we had geese when I was young. My mother bought 5, thinking 1 or 2 might survive; all 5 did and boy howdy are they good watchdogs. Finally, after enough honking over 4 or 5 years, they were reduced to table fare, at the behest of the neighbor.
 
otjm said:
It bears remembering that if you are within city limits, it may behoove you to check with the city code as to whether or not you may keep chickens, ducks, etc. Some cities have regulations that would prevent maintaining any, or only a limited number. Also be on the lookout for rules that may not specifically restrict them, but would prevent you from having or maintaining anything which can attract vermin - as in rats and mice.

In addition, if you live in a homeowners’ association, they may have regulations that would prevent having them, even if the city code allows them.

I am all for having a small flock; we had geese when I was young. My mother bought 5, thinking 1 or 2 might survive; all 5 did and boy howdy are they good watchdogs. Finally, after enough honking over 4 or 5 years, they were reduced to table fare, at the behest of the neighbor.
Click to expand...
Based on dh’s own personal experience chickens absolutely adore a meal of mice. 😃 Nothing left but a little bit of fluff, they like small snakes too.
 
otjm said:
It bears remembering that if you are within city limits, it may behoove you to check with the city code as to whether or not you may keep chickens, ducks, etc. Some cities have regulations that would prevent maintaining any, or only a limited number. Also be on the lookout for rules that may not specifically restrict them, but would prevent you from having or maintaining anything which can attract vermin - as in rats and mice.

In addition, if you live in a homeowners’ association, they may have regulations that would prevent having them, even if the city code allows them.
Click to expand...
I live in a suburb of Portland, OR.

Our neighborhood is actually unincorporated.

The only laws that apply are county.

We are good up to having more than 100 chickens.
 
My nephew & wife, who live in the city limits of Portland, OR, are allowed to have 3 hens. When I visited recently, the newspaper reported that a nearby town (can’t remember which) is going to allow urban chickens, but people will have to buy a license. I think it was $25/yr. Those will be pricey eggs! :eek:
 
I’ve raised ducks my whole life, but never had chickens. Did have one duck who was a Buff Orpington though. Make sure they get fed good an watch that they can get at the water in the winter months. Ice can be a real bother.
 
I did not know that roosters watched over the hens. That is very interesting. But what about fertilized eggs. For some reason, the thought of that just turns my stomach! How does one prevent it?:confused:
 
The only way to prevent fertilized eggs is to not have a rooster. But as long as the eggs are gathered daily there is no real difference between fertilized & non-fertilized. The chick won’t grow until a broody hen keeps it warm. Most breeds have had the broodiness bred out of them.

I had a Buff Orpington roo I called my “hero rooster.” The chickens were out when they were attacked by a neighbor’s dogs. Buffy was found in the woods more dead than alive, but he recovered. When the dogs attacked a 2nd time, we thought he was a goner because we couldn’t find him or most the hens. At dusk he came marching out of the woods with the hens following! He died a peaceful death due to old age. His son, aka Buffy II, is a chip off the old block.

A gentleman rooster will find food for his hens & call them over. He will watch over them to make sure they aren’t bothered by predators while eating. It’s fun to give a treat to the roo & watch him give it to a hen. :tiphat:
 
DH’s grandma had a store, and they kept chickens outside, and the kids job when they got school age, besides stocking shelves and making deliveries, was plucking the chickens. A customer would order a chicken, one of the aunts would kill it on a stump outside and pluge it in the boiler, and leave it for the kids to pluck and deliver. He has never been big on eating chicken, and is in fact mostly vegetarian.

When we lived in Cleveland our neighborhood had a growing Puerto Rican and Filipino population, who petitioned and received city council for permission to keep backyard chickens I think the limit was 3-4, but they had to go back and amend the code about roosters. 8-10 yards on a block all with a rooster is a lot to put up with. Our area is unincorporated and roosters wake us up about 4:30-5 am.

If I kept chickens I am sure I would select them by the name of the breed, just to say those names I love them, I think Buff-Orpingtons are my favorite (Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers comes to mind).

for edibility of the rooster, recall the scene in Gone with the Wind where old Peter kills Miss Pitty’s last rooster for Christmas dinner. I think the chickens we buy in the store for eating are killed before they are old enough to know if they are roosters or otherwise.
 
Growing up throughout childhood, we had chickens. We moved to the ‘rural’ side of town where we had the expanse of 3 lots. One night, my dad brought home a gamecock in a cardboard box. The next day, a Saturday, he wrangled up a big walk-in chicken coop. By that time, I didn’t care for eggs but my parents and sibling ate them with gusto. The chickens were never raised for eating.

I remember coming home from school, changing into my play clothes and going into the chicken coop to sit on an old crate and watch the chickens interact and scratch around until 5 o’clock–the time my dad came home from work. I learned about the pecking order and the pride of the rooster. The rooster was people-friendly. He kept watch over the flock. Dad would come home and let the chickens out to free range. We kids learned a little about the life cycle when one hen would turn broody. When my parents said it would take 21 days for the chicks to hatch, it seemed like it would take forever. That hen was isolated from the others. She hatched 10 chicks. She was a fierce hen! Mom could not hang laundry on the clotheslines until that hen and her brood had cleared the area.

What I liked the most was how the rooster would find a morsel and summon the hens. One hen took the grub and then the rooster would get upset at the loss; he wing-dragged and scolded the offending hen. I always wondered why the hens would grumble-cackle whenever the rooster crowed. As for sport, well, who couldn’t laugh when one chick would find a juicy grasshopper and run for cover with a dozen sibling chicks giving chase. The possessing chick would eventually get trapped along the fence or in a corner of the yard and lose the bug to another chick to begin the chase again, leaving the first chick to grumble and bemoan its loss.

It was sweet ticklish torture to hold a handful of chicken feed and let chicks and hens peck away.

The rooster reminded us of our Catholic roots. Mom said that on Christmas Eve the roosters all over the world would crow “¡Cristo nacio!” (Christ is born!). And so I would listen. I learned from my mom and that rooster how to listen with the heart of faith. At the Easter Triduum, I was reminded of my mortal weakness like St. Peter, when I would hear the eerie crow of the same rooster on Holy Thursdays.

Maybe when I retire I’ll get a small flock.

My two cents,
Joe
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top