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Our Backyard Chicken Adventure


Back in February I told David we should get chickens! He told me the egg shortage would end soon and that we wouldn't save any money having chickens. He was 100% right (there are a lot of fixed costs with raising chickens like building a coop and run, but afterwards the expenses are not too bad) and the chickens have been a lot of fun. Turns out there was a lot I didn't know about chickens and I greatly enjoyed learning about them! 

For example, I learned the following:
  • Why are grocery store eggs white? Most eggs we eat come from white leghorn chickens, which lay white eggs, but different chicken breeds lay different colors.
  • Meat Chickens vs. Egg Chickens - Humans have cared for chickens for a long time. Some chickens are bred for their meat (think Cornish cross) and others for their eggs. David and I are not excited about processing chickens, so instead we went for chickens that are egg layers.
  • Egg production vs. Collecting the rainbow of egg colors - We decided we wanted a mix of a few prolific egg layers and a few chickens that will add a variety of color to our egg basket. 
Here are the breeds of our chickens:
  • Golden Comet - 250-320 brown eggs yearly
  • Cream Legbar - 180-250 blue eggs yearly
  • Easter egger - 180-250 green/blue eggs yearly
  • Speckled Sussex - 200-250 light brown eggs yearly
  • Barred Rock - 200-280 brown eggs yearly
Names for our chickens:
  • Goldie
  • Allie
  • Flow
  • Speckles
  • Peggy
  • Hazelnut 
  • Stinky
  • Skunk
When we had chicks we kept them in our bathroom in a big tote with a heat lamp. When chicks are first born they normally stay warm under mama hen, which is why the chicken heat light lamp is so important to keep temperatures warm. Each week they can handle slightly cooler temperatures until they are fully featured and ready to go outside. We moved the chicks to our garage when they got too big for the tote into a play-pen like space and then welcomed them into the coop outside when it was Spring and they were ready. 

We've been enjoying our new hobby.

One of my favorite memories is shortly after we brought our white easter egger chick home she was complaining a lot in the brooder. Her chirp was annoying and not cute like the others. I saw she was standing on the "cooler" side of the brooder so I picked her up and moved her closer to the "warm" side of the brooder under the lamp. She immediately calmed down and started chirping happily. I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was for me to sit and watch the chicks play in the brooder. I now understand why people say they love caring for chicks. 

Here are our chickens enjoying free ranging in the backyard: 


The beautiful rainbow of egg colors we get:



Inside of our chicken coop (we modified the OverEZ large coop from Costco with a poop shelf and rotated the roosting bars)


View of the run that David built with one of his college friends (where we put their feed and water)


I purchased two books to learn about raising backyard chickens:
  • "The Chicken Chick's Guide to Backyard Chickens: Simple Steps for Healthy, Happy Hens" by Kathy Shea Mormino. 
  • "A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping" by Robert and Hannah Litt. 






 

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