The Rirst 6 Months As Chicken Owners

Chicken math is a thing. The thing where you get chickens and want more and more and more. It’s true.

We had arranged to get our chickens as soon as possible so we could enjoy the benefit of farm fresh eggs as soon as possible. We were set to move into our new home on sept 9th and has our coop delivered a couple weeks later.

We decided to get our coop made by an independent company to make sure that it was made correctly and 100% predator proof. We were a little short on time and had alot on our plate so we thought this was the best decision. Our coop cost $4000 with delivery. It was a 8x12 run (8x6 being the full enclosed coop) and (8x6 being the fenced in run). This is comfortable enough for about 20 chickens. I had read some horror stories of coop’s not being securely enclosed allowing predators entry and entire flocks wiped out. I wanted a healthy start and so far really happy with their home.

We currently own 14 chickens and they are all a barnyard mix. We get light brown, dark brown, light blue, and olive green eggs. None of them are pure breed yet however we hope to add some soon. Some of their names are Lettuce, Honey, Hehe, Goldie, Daddy Bird, Chai, Speedy, Spot (mostly named by ours kids).

I will be totally honest about our chicken experience so I can save you the pain. When I picked up our original group of chickens the farmer said to me “everyone loves a chicken dinner”. He was refering to the predators of the forest. It is SO important that you have a secure coup and you decide how you want your chickens to live. My husband Ryan was nonchalant one day and had the chickens free ranging. The sun was going down and before you knew it we heard sqacking and noises from the coop. 10/12 chickens were dead. Some were laying around the coop and some were completely taken. We suspect a fox, however it could have been a coyote or raccoon as well. Chickens cannot see very well at night and naturally gravitate towards their coop as the sun goes down. We now have a rule that we do not free range the chickens (let them freely roam our property) unless someone is outside with them. When they are not free ranging (we put them in our chicken tractor) or they are in the outdoor run side of their coop. We learned alot from that lesson and we understand that it’s a natural life cycle but it really sucked.

Since then we have replaced our coop and have respected nature alot more and our flock is going strong.

Chickens are pretty easy pets. They need food and water topped up every 3 days. We have big water and pellet feeders that sit inside their coop. You could totally leave them for a night or two but probably not longer without a chicken babysitter tending to them. We layered their coop with wood chips and do the organic style of padding which means every month we will add in new wood chips and stir them up. Their chicken poop eventually dissolves and helps keep the coop warm. We have 3 roosts. Roosting is how chickens like to sleep. We have three 3 branches propped up in the coop and they all roost their together at night. Healthy chickens start laying eggs daily around 16-20 weeks old, so if you have 10 chickens you could expect 10 eggs a day. Acess to natural sunlight does affect their egg production, so summer months tend to yield higher egg production. Last winter we did intall a light inside the coop to help with this and our egg production stayed high. You want to be very mindful here for any heat source that is inside your coop as they are a fire hazard and the perfect way to start a fire and burn your coop to the ground.

We also purchased a Chicken Guard Door. This allows you to set the open and close time of your chicken coop door so you dont have to manually open and close it in the morning. This is really nice in the colder months and early mornings, so you know the chickens are out but dont have to tend to them.

See our chicken guard door here. Chicken Guard

We like to let our chickens free range as much as possible so they have access to nature (bugs and grass and all the things) as this affects the quality of eggs. The more they get to free range, the healthier eggs we get. More importantly it’s just a better life for them.

We currently do not own a rooster. Having a rooster means that you would have fertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs are known to be healthier. With fertilized eggs, broody hens sit on them and hatch them within 21 days. If you do not want baby chicks you would just want to collect your eggs daily.

We picked up 8 fertilized eggs as multiple of our hens were broody and tried to hatch them the natural way (no human interference) and we didnt have any luck. None of the eggs hatched. There are many reasons for this but I will save that for another post! It is possible to hatch your eggs with a broody hen, and we may try again before we resort to the incubator.

Being a chicken owner is really fun. It definitely adds a fun element to our day, collecting eggs and creating food we are in control of. We definitely will be getting some more chickens and trying out the hatching process again the near future. We will also be trying out our own meat birds for next year. This is where you raise your own chicks and then take them to be processed. It is a specific type of chicken (not the type we have right now).

You don’t need tons of space to have chickens and they make for really fun pets. Highly recommend.