Totally off topic : chickens

[osprey]

Does anyone have backyard chickens?  For some reason I am fascinated by the idea of harvesting home grown eggs.  I read about it a little, and the thing that bothers me is that they seem to lay for only a few years, and then they are usually gotten rid of.  Anyone with personal experience?

 

[Sarita]

Oh goodness – I have no experience but I’ve heard they are extremely intelligent and make great pets. I’ve always wanted a Bantam Rooster.

[TARM]

Sorry, can’t help you with the chikkins. I’m more of a pygmy goat kinda girl.

[(dig)x(me)x(now)]

My great uncle had a chicken farm for years where he raised small chicken for non-food purposes and loved it! If I had been back to New Orleans in the past few years, I would probably be running a chicken farm right now! Hahaha

[LittlePuffyTail]

We have a chicken (Pearl) and a rooster (Fluffy) at the stable where I work and keep my horse. They are pets and are free to roam around the farm. The rooster is so gorgeous, he is a silky which means he has fur instead of plumage. They’ve been at the farm for about 2 years and for some reason, all of a sudden, the chicken decided to sit on her eggs. A few weeks ago we thought she disappeared, then we found her in one of the horse’s pastures with 13 baby chicks! They are a few weeks old now and getting so big, we need to find homes for them. Too bad you don’t live closer, Id be able to set you up!

Chickens are like rabbits in the way that people think they have no personality! That is so not true. For the most part they are very intelligent and gentle creatures. I get a kick out of watching the rooster terrorize all the animals 50 times his size!

Id have to say the down side to having chickens around is they can get pretty smelly.

[jerseygirl]

Hi Osprey
I had 2 backyard chicken but lost one to a fox. This was a surprise because I live in suburbia and didn’t think foxes were an issue but apparently they are! I took these 2 on as they came from my parents farm but were being picked on by the other chickens and were looking pretty terrible. They grew their feathers back and started laying after a number of weeks. In the past I’ve kept up to 10 chickens. They were aged and egg production was limited. Many died just from old age but they did provide enough egg plus great manure for the garden!

We always kept chickens on the farm for our own purposes. Generally my father would buy ex-poultry farm cage birds that had become less productive. We always found that with a grain and kitchen scrap diet, they produced eggs aplenty for our needs. They were only retired from the industry due to age and consistancy issues. Egg production naturally fluctuates, chickens will go off they lay due to moulting, stress, diet deficiency, and natural ovarian regression. In the poultry industry, this regression is often misdiagnosed as ovarian disease and the chickens are culled. For a backyard chicken, these fluctuations shouldn’t be too much of an issue as they often don’t all go off the lay at once. Usually you can encourage production again by an increase in protein in the diet and calcium is always important.

Added bonus- I’ve noticed they have kept the weeds down in the back yard area where I keep them and they seem to keep the stray cats away! This is good as I feel happier about letting Jersey(bunny!) out to play then and she likes to go down and visit the chicken thru the fence. Also I use the manure and old hay to super boost the compost heap.

Tip: to get that great orange/yellow yolk, let them get to the grass – they love it!

So…I am NO expert but this is what I’ve learnt from experience over the years.

p.s. You won’t believe how many times I’ve gone back over the post to change the term “chook” to “chicken”. In Australia “chook” is colloquial for chicken. I didn’t realise this wasn’t universal until I posted on another thread about my chook and had many confused replies!! Hope I didn’t miss any corrections above – but now you know Aussie for chicken!!

p.p.s Congrats on the BB promotion by the way.

[Deleted User]

We had chookies in the backyard when we were growing up … always had at least 6.  They had their own chook pen and a laying area with laying boxes with straw in them… dad made these.  They had periods where we had so many eggs we were egged out, but they do have periods where they put up their feet for some R&R.  Many of our chooks lived for years … I think 2 were something like 10 years old … but they didn’t lay … just had them as pets in the end.

They were fed chicken laying pellets and Mum made up a batch of chooky food … mum would boil up scraps from veggie peelings etc and then mix through a mash (was like a bran for chooks) .. they would go mad for it … god smelt awful though.  They basically eat anything except dairy and meat products …

We let them run around in the open backyard but they love to scratch up the garden beds.

They can get some type of lice/mange .. not sure what it is but after we inherited a heap of chooks, many of them died from it.  Also if very hot they can die from overheating.

If I had the room I’d have some in my backyard … oohh by the way their poop is great for the garden and veggie patch.

[Lightchick]

I have nothing helpful to add…just a funny story…

BF’s mom had chickens and pheasants and assorted birds as pets/egg-layers when he was a kid. Apparently, his job was to go into the chicken-coop and get the eggs. But the rooster had it in for him…would lay in wait, if you believe my BF’s version of the story! And BF’s mom’s BF (I know, convoluted, right?!), thought it was the HEIGHT of comedy to lock poor baby BF in the chicken coop with the crazed rooster chasing him around in circles until mom heard and let him out…

He’s still traumatized! No, seriously, HATES birds, now! I go coo at the conures and canaries at the petstore, and he suddenly becomes very interested in kitty litter…

[Author]

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