It all started when Josh and I got married and we thought it would be cute to have outdoor (free range) chickens. Made perfect sense: we'd have little critters decorating the yard, we'd have our own eggs and have a few left over to sell on the side. We started with about 25 and things have just grown from there. Right now, we have between 40 and 50 laying hens (I'm guessing!) plus the few roosters we have running around and we're averaging roughly 30 eggs a day. A few weeks ago, we hatched out about 30 chicks and then knowing that half of those were roosters and half of anything more we hatched out would be as well, we went ahead and ordered 30 more laying hens to ensure that our egg supply would stay up. We order and/or hatch varying amounts every Spring and Fall.
Over the past few years of having chickens, I've had many questions posed to me about them as well as many statements directed toward me that were completely wrong! I'm certainly no expert, but some things I DO know and those things I'm about to clarify:
* Roosters are males and do not lay eggs. They are good for fertilizing the hens' eggs if you want to hatch your own chicks and for a good chicken stew if you get them young enough.
* Also, roosters crow all day long, not just in the morning. I'll never forget one day when a man in the area from Georgia stopped by in the afternoon to get eggs. He pulled in the drive way, got out of his truck and then just stood there looking out across the yard. When he finally made his way up to the porch, I greeted him and he greeted me with a great big silly grin saying that he had just heard a rooster crowing. He was flabbergasted that they didn't just crow in the morning!
* If you see a chicken on top of another chicken awkwardly flopping around to keep their balance, they are not fighting... they are making babies. Just turn your head and give them some privacy. Usually only roosters fight (face-to-face) and its very obvious and not pretty when they're going at each other!
* Chickens lay eggs only if they get enough light. They need roughly (not an exact science here) 12 hours of light a day to lay eggs. So in the winter, it's as simple as putting a light bulb in their house on a timer to get that extra light that the sun doesn't provide in the shorter winter hours.
* Eggs are the result of extra protein in a chicken's diet. If the chicken feed doesn't have enough protein, the hen won't have enough extra protein to produce an egg. I learned this the hard way when our chickens lightened up on laying eggs for a while. (Thanks to my brother and dad for enlightening me to this fact.)
* Brown, white and colored (blue, green and spotted) eggs are exactly the same except for color. One is not better (healthier) than the other.
* It only ONLY!!! takes three weeks for a fertilized egg to become a chick. This absolutely fascinates me! Only three weeks for eyes, beak, heart, downy feathers, feet, liver, EVERYthing to form. God's creation is stunning! (By the way, it only takes a hummingbird egg two weeks for a chick to develop!)
* But its not as simple as putting the egg on the counter and waiting for a chick to magically appear... if a hen is not brooding the eggs, they have to be kept in an incubator at 99 degrees with a decent amount of humidity. Also, the eggs have to be rotated (turned) to keep the developing chick inside moving and developing.
* Chickens are like goats... they will eat just about anything. While we do have a main diet of blended grain and protein for them, they still roam the yard picking at bugs and plants as well as eating all the kitchen scraps (veggie peelings, meat scraps, egg shells) I throw out to them from the back door.
* And they WILL fight the cats for their rights to the scraps!
* Despite being stupid birds (the phrase "bird brain" is in existence for a reason), they are amazingly aware of their environment. If coffee time is outside, we're bombarded by the flock looking for crumbs to be dropped or thrown to them.
* They also recognize voices; they'll come to Josh's call (who usually feeds them at night) much quicker than they will mine or the kids'.
* Chickens CAN fly, they just don't. But I have never figured out if they can swim.
* Chickens (well, OUR chickens anyway) pretty well put themselves up at night; I guess it's instinct to head home at dusk. And then we close the barn doors for the night, lest a coon, owl or chicken hawk wants a chicken dinner!
* Speaking of chicken dinner, we don't eat our chickens. By the time they are done laying eggs, they're old and tough as shoe leather.
* Why did the chicken cross the road? Because the other one did first.
* Why did the first chicken cross the road? I have no idea, but as soon as the poor unfortunate thing met the grill of a vehicle the others stopped. (This is where I should insert a joke about anyone wanting grilled chicken!) It only took one troublesome hen to lead the pack to trouble getting on the road and when she was gone, we didn't have a problem anymore.
YOU may think this is all common sense, but I've been asked about everything on this list. Probably more that I just can't think of right now.
Now, as always, a few pictures....
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| Baby chicks we hatched earlier this month. Once the eggs start to hatch, I have to put the chicks into Tupperware containers to keep them from walking all over and disrupting the eggs that haven't started yet. The chicks stay in the incubator a good nine to twelve hours after hatching to dry off. Once dry, we transport them to .... |
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| ....a tank in the hoghouse. The tank is bedded with cornstalks and has a heat bulb over it to keep the chicks super warm. They'll stay here for several weeks until they develop wings enough to start flying out of the tank. Once that happens, they're old enough to be moved to an area of the henhouse that is fenced off just for them (apart from the older hens). They aren't allowed to go outside until several weeks after that. But once big enough, they're turned into the area with the older hens and allowed to roam the yard freely. |
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| Chicks that aren't from the incubator are shipped via the good ol' United States Post Office. The hatchery sexes (determines if they are pullets (hens) or roosters) and "packages" your order of chicks the day they hatch and then ships them next day mail. Unbelievable, huh? But it works terrific! Chicks have enough of the nutrients from developing before hatching still left in their stomach after hatching that they can go two days before having to have food or water. But they certainly are hungry and ready to eat when they arrive at their new home! |
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| This is how we get our feed. That there is a grinder mixer. Grinders do just that.... grind. We weigh out how much corn we need and run it through the grinder for it to get ground good and fine. Then, for chickens, we add alfalfa and allow it to grind and mix together. Alfalfa is our protein source. (Remember hens need plenty of protein to produce eggs?) The grinder is used primarily for hogs and cattle, but even the lowliest of farm creatures benefit from it! |
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| This is the mixture all ground up and done. Whole kernel corn and alfalfa bales are turned to a very fine mixture, perfect for any chicken's delight! |
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| The feed is then unloaded into a bulk bin for storage. The bulk bin has an auger system that allows us to run out feed a bucket at a time for the chickens' supper each night. |
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| Our chickens aren't pets. However, we have had several people who had chickens but no longer could take care of or wanted them give us their chickens. Those chickens tend to be a little more pet-like for the first few days they're here. This happens to be one of them last summer. After a little time on the farm, though, they lose their tameness and begin fitting in more with the rest of the flock. Until then, the kids enjoy having a new buddy! |
Well, there ya go. Probably more than you ever wanted to know about chickens... or at least more than you wanted to know about the Van Zante chick chicks (as they're called here).
By the way, the eggs are $1.50 per dozen if you're interested, pretty reasonable for fresh brown farm eggs!
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