Do you have chickens

[Anonymous]

Anyone have chickens on your property?
Are they hard or easy to maintain?
How much time a day do you spend caring for them?
How many do you have and how many eggs do you get a week?
Do you have them for the eggs or another reason?

TIA

[Anonymous]

This American Life had the FUNNEST story about 2 guys who bought chickens. Look it up. I laughed until I cried.

[Anonymous]

Do you happen to know the title of it, or what year it's from? Couldn't find it just searching for "chicken"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have chickens on your property?
Are they hard or easy to maintain?
How much time a day do you spend caring for them?
How many do you have and how many eggs do you get a week?
Do you have them for the eggs or another reason?

TIA

Urban chickens are becoming super popular in cities across the country. Lots of blogs and articles written about it -- do some research and you will come up with all the info you could possibly want.

We have two hens and they lay about a dozen eggs a week (they each lay one egg most days.) They need very little attention -- take them food and water once a day. It takes about three minutes. Then, rake out their house about once every 2-4 weeks. Mine have a small house with an attached run, and it is filled with hay so it doesn't really even smell bad. When I clean it out, the hay goes into the compost pile.

Why do we have chickens? 1) organic, soy-free eggs from pastured chickens (we move the run or allow them to roam the yard), 2) good compost material (we also have a small garden so we love to have great compost each spring) and 3) they eat all of our food scraps and 4) I like having pets, but not needy ones, so chickens are a great fit. It's kind of peaceful to watch them scratching in the earth and running around.

[Anonymous]

I have neighbors in Friendship Heights/Tenleytown who I suspect have them. I am so jealous.

[Anonymous]

I thought I'd love to get chickens. Until we visited a B&B in North Carolina where they actually had chickens! The problem was not the mess or the clucking. The real problem was that chickens are only fertile for a few years and then they live out the rest of their 10-year lives without contributing eggs or anything else, because they don't make great pets. At that point, your choice is to keep unproductive chickens as pets or cook them. The B&B owner, who had small kids, said they couldn't bear to kill them so pets they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have chickens on your property?
Are they hard or easy to maintain?
How much time a day do you spend caring for them?
How many do you have and how many eggs do you get a week?
Do you have them for the eggs or another reason?

TIA

Urban chickens are becoming super popular in cities across the country. Lots of blogs and articles written about it -- do some research and you will come up with all the info you could possibly want.

We have two hens and they lay about a dozen eggs a week (they each lay one egg most days.) They need very little attention -- take them food and water once a day. It takes about three minutes. Then, rake out their house about once every 2-4 weeks. Mine have a small house with an attached run, and it is filled with hay so it doesn't really even smell bad. When I clean it out, the hay goes into the compost pile.

Why do we have chickens? 1) organic, soy-free eggs from pastured chickens (we move the run or allow them to roam the yard), 2) good compost material (we also have a small garden so we love to have great compost each spring) and 3) they eat all of our food scraps and 4) I like having pets, but not needy ones, so chickens are a great fit. It's kind of peaceful to watch them scratching in the earth and running around.

How much land do you have? We are on 0.10 acres which I know is too small, but I am curious what the minimum lot would be for chickens.

[Anonymous]

Grant Wood-The Appraisal
1931


Timeless.

[Anonymous]

Here is a chicken run that accommodates 6 chickens:


It is a good design because it looks like it would be easy to get in there to hose it down. You need to know that chickens are incredibly filthy creatures--chicken shit will be everywhere--the walls the ceilings, etc. It's not like the old cartoons where they sit there neatly warming their eggs!

[Anonymous]

My aunt and uncle had chickens growing up. They did it for the eggs. Chickens are f-ing dumb - they'd always have to run home if it started to rain unexpectedly so they could get the chickens into their shelter, otherwise the dumb birds would look up at the rain and drown.

They had a ton of land, and a pretty large area for the chickens to wander. Big mistake - when the chickens stopped laying eggs, they ate them and I never laughed so hard in my life - the chickens were SO tough it was like chewing leather.

[Anonymous]

In the Great Depression, having chickens was a sign that you were on hard times.

Funny how things come full circle.

[Anonymous]

Just make sure you're OK dealing with chicken end-of-life issues, and that you know what you'll say to your kids. Alternatively, make sure you're OK with caring for some fairly messy creatures who aren't smart enough to make good pets, for a number of years after they stop laying. Chickens only lay eggs for the first few years of their lives.

[Anonymous]

pp: then they become stewing chickens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pp: then they become stewing chickens.

Yes. But does OP want to wring, pluck, and then explain to DCs that this was Fred?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pp: then they become stewing chickens.

Yes. But does OP want to wring, pluck, and then explain to DCs that this was Fred?

Oh, my view on this is if you do it, you have to be all in. And the dcs better be involved. They can do the plucking after DH lops off the neck and drains the blood.