Maybe it’s the vinegar preserving the peppers, then. All I can say is, try it and see. I know what I’ve witnessed.
They stink. They are noisy. They are messy.
Eggs are cheap.
Any of my hens that crow will be visiting relatives in the country in short order.
I don’t want 10 chickens but I could have 10 chickens. I was thinking 4ish might be a good starting number. They are welcome to my back slope, but I might need more chickens then. I think hawks would get them (although the corvids usually run them off).
I need to start doing research on where to buy fully grown, friendly chickens that require no in-the-house quality time.
Or I could just shelve this for a while. Decisions, decisions.
Loved the freezer camp comment as well =)
We kept various forms of poultry for decades - chickens are fun to watch - roughly 26 weeks between chick and egg laying - just so you don’t expect instant eggs =)
Process for us - go to the Agway early spring and reserve how ever many chicks you want [sometimes if they are arriving by mail from someplace like Murray Mcmurray they have a minimum order] and you can specify just females or mixed or even sometimes straight run cocks for meat purposes. You will need a place to shelter them and keep them under a heat lamp for a few weeks until they can control their heat better - we ended up with a corner of the barn turned into a brooding area with a corner fenced off with a 2 foot tall barrier, a couple inches of sand and heat lamps, and feeders and waterers. You need to add a vitamin/mineral suppliment to the water, and if you get broiler/meat chickens Broiler Booster and a slightly different diet. Baby chick mash to start with [a 50 pound sack will go for quite a time for just a dozen chicks!] There are a number of decent how to books around, and a fair number of chicken hobbyists around willing to help - I know a couple on Facebook.
Our first batch of Rhodes Island Reds had a disconcerting habit of laying double yolked eggs! One poor girl tended to throwing out a triple yolked egg now and then. Bantams are cute and attitudinal, and Guinea Fowl while not chickens get along nicely with them and love eating ticks. You will notice with hens that your insect population will decrease. They will however eat garden plants happily. You can get a movable type of henhouse generally called a chicken tractor and move it around to scratch up the dirt and nip grasses shorter.
I know nothing about raising chickens, but I just wanted to mention that my brother had two pet chickens that he named Original Recipe and Extra Crispy.
The first chickens I saw being raised were at the old farm across the street from where we lived, and they were Bantams. I wondered a long time why anyone wanted to raise little chickens but it makes plenty of sense, you won’t as easily end up with too many eggs, everything can be smaller, and they’ll eat less.
Now double and triple yolks, nothing to complain about there.
Just a note on this - it is not always easy to introduce new chickens to an established flock. It can be like a more involved version of introducing new pets. Since they’re flocking animals there is a social hierarchy that is being disrupted and fighting/bullying can be a problem. Apparently this is also somewhat breed mediated, so checking if a particular breed is highly territorial might be another bit of research you may want to do if you think you might expand your flock in stages.
A lot of great information here already! Absolutely get them.
But I would hatch them yourselves- it is really cool and fun. We’ve hatched 3 dozen over the years (18 hatched). We had 0 problem getting rid of roosters, and too many- especially if giving for free on Craigslist and delivering them to the takers.
Our last flock was just 3 keepers- and 9 years later, 1 remains. The other two died last summer. Last egg was 2 years ago. We built a coop for $50 2x4s and 1/4" plywood and then ran the square chicken wire down to the ground and out 1 foot in all directions (probably another $50 worth of wire from Amazon) about 1" under the top soil. Coop on top and outdoor chicken run underneath. Chicks moved to the coop from the heat lamp and garage at about 8 weeks or so. We built the coop with a lot of air vents so the poop dries in a day or two and smell has never been noticed. Flies like the fresh ones out in the grass though, but only for an hour or two.
We generally let them out during teh day into our fenced in backyard. They really think they are part of our flock- and sit on a railing outside our kitechen window all day when not foraging.
We’ve trained them to stay off the deck- need to be reminded maybe every other month now. But they are also trained to two other sounds. “TREAT treat treat” will call them from anywhere to your feet- we give them mealworms or popped popcorn. “here here here” will get them to come into the coop so you can lock up. That one was trained with the same as above.
We use homemade PVC feeders for both feed and water- allows easy refilling every week or two. If we’re gone for a week, no need to get a pet sitter. Otherwise one check in per week to refill water and feed. EVERYONE will volunteer to watch your checkens. Don’t really need to pay as it is very easy and not in your house!
A 40lb feed bag ($20) lasts 3 chickens about 3 months - especially with supplement from kitchen scraps.
We scoop and replace wood chips in the coop every 3+ months. And scrap out the underneath run every year. And throw down some more gritty sand in there.
We have a 20# dog who is totally fine with the chickens- he knows to chase them off the deck but forgets. But otherwise, they will peck the dog if they think he is trying to eat their scraps.
Our are really friendly and we held them a lot and still do pick up our remaining one. They are often between my legs while grilling and love folllowing behind while we mow and weedwack.
We are in Seattle, so weather isn’t too cold, but we generally have a heat lamp in the coop mid-Nov --> mid March and only at night. And just a red LED bulb the rest of the year.
We only wish this final flock would have not been quite so long-lived as we wish we could have fit another round in before the kids aged out. They are both the dumbest animals (they have to figure out how to get out of the coop almost every day) but also the cutest when the fight over a popcorn kernal or a slug.
Yes, don’t try mixing flocks unless you have a lot of chickens. Like 10 and adding 10! Chicken hierarchy is amazing to watch and our smallest chicken has almost always been the queen bee (she laid exactly once and seemed to hate teh other more prodcutive chickens). The hierarchy with our last chicken/flock was clear (and I’m really not kidding)
my-youngest-child(8 yo) < 20# dog < Isis(White Leghorn+Brahma mix) < Buttercup(Rhode Island Red) <my-10-yo-daughter < Owl(silver laced wyandotte and the pecking order champion) < wife < me (i gave more treats and locked them up and let them out most)
Pecking order decides who eats first or gets first mouthful as well as who gets to pick up or stroke which chicken and where the chickens placed themselves when we ate at teh picnic table. They are ruthless to other visiting chickens that we were babysitting or trying to introduce. Like you feel sad for the newbie just sitting there and taking it.
- I would maybe start with 6. More eggs and chickens can just die randomly whether predators or freak accidents or what seems to be nothing at all.
- Like I wrote above, you don’t need a big coop per say if you have a nice fenced in covered varmint proof run.
- The minimum rule of thumb is about 2 to 3 square feet per chicken inside the chicken coop, and 8 to 10 square feet per chicken in an outside run.
Note: above is just a random internet link. My experience is the roost/egg laying core area can be pretty small, you probably need the 2-3 sq ft for the “core” chicken run, and then it sounds like you have a lot of space out back that could be easily fenced with chicken wire.
Just measured my set up. The roosting/egg laying area is 3x4’, and the roosts can fit 11 full sized chickens. The core covered run area is 4x8’. I did a ghetto extension with chicken wire and zip ties that is another 8x12’. Then there is the day area enclosure which is probably 15x50 feet and consists of a very simple 3 foot high chicken wire
- I have not had a issue with predators during the day, but we have a lot of trees so the hawks can’t swoop in (do hawks go after prey on the ground or just in the air?). There was a racoon incident maybe an hour after dawn one time that killed half the existing flock. And I have had 2 or 3 over the years that simply disappeared but I think those had likely not been locked in at night and something got em.
- Craigs list will get you grown chickens. And you may find someone wanting to get rid of their whole set up.
-It’s the end of the live chick season but there may still be some out there.
-And if you can find chickens raised for 4H, they will be really well hand raised. Search on 4H chickens in your area. - There are reasonable ways to integrate new chickens into the flock.
I took some photos of my set up. look for an email at your SDMB list from sparky thudpucker
Had a lamb named Lambchop but not after the puppet =) , and we named a batch of turkeys Giblet, Roast, Enchilada and Thanksgiving. We named our rooster Cogburn which ended up with us haveing a cat named General Lee [I oopsed, Rooster Cogburn had a pet cat named General Sterling Price. We went out one morning to feed the chickens, and there was a small abandoned/dumped kitten chowing down on the cat crunchies we boosted the protein with and Cogburn was standing there watching him, so we decided he was Cogburn’s petso I started calling him General Lee because I couldn’t remember which General he named his pet cat after.]
My experience raising chickens… Lost my bubble gum in the chicken coop and thought I found it 3 times. Don’t try to find your gum if you drop it.
2 facts I learned from raising chickens…
Do you know what that white stuff along the edge of chicken shit is called? Chicken shit!
How many doors does a chicken coop need to have? 2, if it has 4, it is a chicken sedan.
Now for a bit of info that is a fact. If your dog or any other animal starts eating the eggs before you get them, crack open an egg and load it with tabasco sauce. They learn their lesson real quick.
Chickens do not stink. It’s their poop that stinks. Keep them clean and compost the poop, it makes very high nitrogen fertilizer.
Chickens are not noisy, although they do ‘talk’. Roosters are noisy.
Chickens are not particularly “messy” but they are surprisingly dusty – they love dust bathing (parasite control) and kick up quite a bit of dust doing it.
Chickens SCRATCH. They scratch for food every second they are awake. If you don’t fence them out of your garden or lawn, kiss it goodbye.
Chickens are very easy to keep except that EVERYTHING EATS THEM. Weasels, minks, coyotes raccoons possums bobcats wolverines bears, large hawks, eagles, owls. Keeping predators, which may include your very own dog or cat, from killing them, requires almost all the energy you will devote to your chickens. If you do not put them up in a totally predator proof coop at night, you will lose them. Daytime is a little easier but you must have at least a dogproof enclosure. That means dig under climb over chew through proof. Cats will get chicks but leave full size adult chickens alone.
Please get a book about chickens and read it. I recommend Chickens In Your Backyard (Damarow, Luttyen).
I’ve kept chickens for thirty years continuously.