This is our chicken journey so far š
On May 30th, just two weeks after moving in, I went to the store and bought our first batch of 14 chicks.
We knew nothing. Absolutely nothing.
At this point, I do not even remember the breed of chickens that we ended up buying.
But, 14 chicks came home with us that day!
We may have done this a little bit backwards because we didn’t have a coop, we didn’t have bedding and we didn’t even have a heat lamp. Gah, I know! So bad!
We put them in a large cardboard box and kept them in our 2nd bathroom for a week, while we worked on getting our chicken coop prepped for them. We did lose one chick on the second day. We aren’t sure what exactly happened, but the poor thing expired under the 3 year olds watch, sooooooo conclusions have been made.
Only Theo had to work full-time and the chicken coop used to be an old goat shed and happened to be about 200% more work than we had anticipated. I did my best to clear it out while Theo was working, and then on his day off, he would get in there and get all the muscle work done that needed to be done.
After about 10 days, we realized that the chicks ALL had impacted gullets. This happens when they start to eat their bedding and is a sure sign that they don’t have enough room. GULP. The chicken coop was still not finished, but we worked as hard and as fast as we could to finally have a safe and secure place for those chickens to live!
Meanwhile, the kids loved every single day of having chickens around!
As soon as we got those chickens into the coop, we realized how much space we have and that we could have even MORE chickens. So Theo went back to the store and bought 14 more! Haha!
We had to keep the two batches of chicks separate since the three week size difference was very extreme. So the new batch got housed in our bathroom and the first batch officially lived in the chicken coop! They were not allowed to free range yet, though.
This batch didn’t get impacted gullets, but they did get pasty butt, which is fun. Ha. Not. You basically have to run the butt under warm water, then wipe all the gunk away with a washcloth, then put vaseline on any sore spots.
After another two weeks, we put the second batch out into the coop, but still had the two chicken batches separate within the coop. At this point we left for vacation and Theo’s aunt graciously came and checked on them and refilled water every other day or so. The timing was actually perfect because both batches were ready to be outside but didn’t need to be let out and locked up each day. So it worked out really well!
Meanwhile, the chickens have been well socialized!
Shortly after getting back from vacation, we have let the chickens out to free range around our property. They love to wander and explore but always come back to their roost at night. I am thinking that next year I may not let them free range quite as much- they have already caused me a number of problems just from being loose. They keep walking over into the neighbors yard- and the neighbors have a dog that discovered how fun chasing chickens is! They also discovered a giant squash plant that I had growing (it was a volunteer plant, not something that I had planted) and ate every single last squash that was growing there. Since they go so far, I can’t really keep track of them during the day and that can be a little bit stressful.
The last thing that we did last week was get a rooster for our flock. His name is Kindess and so far he has treated all the ladies well. He doesn’t seem to be much of a guard rooster for now, but we will give him some time.
The plan right now is to start collecting eggs sometime around October. I do plan to try to have a broody hen that hatches her eggs, but reading about that process intimidates me! We will add more to our flock each year and then kill some to have for chicken in the freezer. Next year we want to try to get some meat birds – they grow fast and we can harvest them within 8 weeks, maybe even have enough to sell some chicken meat.
It’s been fun learning as we go. I am sure that I will look back and notice everything that we possibly did wrong, but for now we are having fun learning as we go along!
Have you ever raised chickens? What did you learn along the way?