Sunday, November 22, 2009

The story continues



Well to continue the story, I bought 25 chickens from Meyer hatchery. I chose Barred Rock as they were good for our cold winters. In June, 26 fluffy chickens arrived at the post office. You have to order them in lots of 25 and they throw one in for good measure. I was called at 6 am to pick them up. I had my brooder ready in the basement and they were watered and fed upon arrival. I read that some would die and not to be concerned. They took off and grew and grew, and grew. four weeks later it was time to get them in the chicken coop. So far I had lost none. This may have been beginners luck. But here are the girls in their coop all grown up. You may wonder what I did with the extra chickens? About eleven were boys, and I only needed 10. Now if your a pet chicken lover you may stop reading now. Yes we put them in the freezer. Now I don't enjoy plucking chickens and I might think of raising meat birds if I could get around the plucking part. Hum. I will have to think on that. 6 months after they arrived, we got our first eggs. We had eggs from these girls for the next four years.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

How it began


I guess it started out about 8 years ago. My experiment with chickens. It began when I visited a neighbor and low and behold she had a hen house in her back yard. Now that is not too unusual except we lived in a nice suburban neighborhood, no cows or horses anywhere in sight. It did get my mind rolling and after a lot of research and a book on how to build chicken coops, I was on my way. I ordered "The Poultry House Construction by Michael Roberts" online. Some how I was able to get my husband on board and we built our first chicken coop together. It took us three Saturdays and $200.00. After the coop was finished we needed to order our chickens. I highly recommend you not order chickens until you have a place to house them. It is amazing how fast they grow.