Is too many? I'm curious to know how many chickens you guys have! I'm at chicken count 21 with 21 in the incubator! I all goes right this would put me at chicken count 42! Well until I send a couple of horrible roosters to freezer camp! Also do you let yours free range? and on how much land? Mine stay on probally less than an acre so poop scoopin' is a daily event for me. I am just wanting to know if I am turning into THE CRAZY CHICKEN LADY!!!!! That little guy in the picture says YES!!!
I got a phone call today in response to a letter I sent. I'm giddy with excitement over this! Look for another fun giveaway really soon, this one will be sponsored!!!!!
Well, I have had well over 100, I sold many of them off...Right now I have around 30ish...In March I have an order of 60+ coming in and they will all stay here, no selling this year...Mine free range every single day of the year on less than 1 acre of land...they pretty much stay what is cleared around the house..they are not much for venturing into the woods and I am glad...yep, poop is an issue, but we have a farm and poop is part of farm life at least here, for us...I don't scoop it up...I just wear my farm shoes and remove them as I come in the door...Around here I am known as the "critter lady" and I will wear that name proudly..lol...I have a little sign as you come down our driveway that says "Slow, chicken crossing"...LOL...I am hoping to once again have 100+ chickens...When it's a food source you have to make sure you can reproduce enough to sustain your family...at least thats how I see it...
ReplyDeleteWow! That's alot of chickens! I have my boots that I kick wear only in the yard and kick off when I come in too. I only pick up poop in the yard occasionally, lately I've had to sweep the porches every other day. They love to hang out on the porch by the back door LOL!
DeleteSounds like you will have plenty of eggs. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI hope so ☺
DeleteWe have about 20 with one rooster. They get to be free range this time of year when they can't hurt anything in the garden. I used to free range all the time but it became too hard to find the eggs as they started hiding them. It is getting too expensive to buy feed for them so I haven't expanded the flock in awhile.
ReplyDeleteFeed is expensive! This is the first really cold winter that I've had alot of chickens and they are going through the food!!!! I had to build fences around all of my gardens to keep the little stinkers out, they still accidentally end up in the garden sometimes LOL!
DeleteKelly, How many are too many depends on you. How many cages you have, how much space, and how many people and how much energy you have to keep cages clean, and provide adequate clean water, especially in a hot climate where that can take some time, a couple of times a day.
ReplyDeleteWe had 100, the result of hatching some and being told that only half would hatch. We hatched all but two ! Feed has risen substantially in the past year, and so we won't be expanding. We may give ten hens and a patrol rooster to our daughter who has a country home five miles from here. We have also lost eight to some particularly vicious foxes who can enter some of the cages, kill and then extricate the dead chicken. We have shot a couple of foxes.
I really enjoy having the chickens. We have 10 ducks in another area also.
You have alot of chickens too! I can't imagine 100!!! Wow! To kill a fox or coyote is a dream of mine, it sounds disturbing but I have had some special chickens taken by predators and I would love to kill one of them, I guess thats the crazy part in the crazy chicken lady LOL! I'm thinking about getting ducks this year. I've heard they are messier than chickens and the meat is too oily but all this is from someone who has never raised them or ate one so it's probally not true.
DeleteWe have around 80. I haven't counted lately. lol If you can keep up with the work and afford them...then have as many as your heart desires!
ReplyDelete~L
Wow, that's alot! My heart loves chickens and that's the problem, I could see myself with eighty some day ☺
DeleteHi Kelly, I think it is wonderful, how you have fallen in love with your chickens. They could not find a better "Mommy" anywhere :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Valentine's Day
Your blogging sister, Connie :)
AWWW Thank you Connie! I do ♥ my chickens! Happy Valentines Day to you too!!!!!
DeleteHow many is too many really depends on you. If you have the space, and the will to do what it takes for them ( Which you do show in spades ) then the sky is the limit! For us we have coop space issues, therefore only a small amount of cluckers. We originally planned on having only 4 chickens. We're up to 10 now( 7 hens, 3 roosters ) I'd LOVE to have a whole slew of them, but the coop needs to expand. They all free range, and don't really venture too far from the barn area due to the evil hawks ( they use about a 1/4 to 1/2 acre if they don't run off to the neighbors ) It is pure joy to look out the window and see their little feathered behinds foraging around the yard. We've never had an issue with then getting into the garden, and with them free ranging and finding their own food, they might substitute their diet with 3 cups of feed for the 10 birds in the winter. In the summer, they don't eat much feed at all.
ReplyDeleteNow, if you start talking to the chickens, and answering yourself back with clucking sounds, THEN you might have crossed the line of crazy chicken lady...
Ha! My original plan was three hens and that was it! I ended up with four at first because one of my chicks had a bad toe and the other ones pecked at it, that's when we got Ms. Squirty, she was smaller and left her toe alone so they lived together until they were grown.
DeleteI'm ready for Spring so they don't come charging at me for some scratch! We should have alot of grasshoppers again this year!
I do talk to the chickens but don't cluck back to myself so I guess I'm not quite the crazy chicken lady yet LOL!
I'm not sure I could count ours. We have a dozen RIR's that are in a pen because they are our consistent layers. Then we have some meat mutt birds running around, probably a dozen or so. Then we have 5 full sized roosters, a few bantam roos, and of course the frizzles, and 2 full brooders. Yep, pretty sure I can't count them all! LOL
ReplyDeleteWow! You've got alot too! I was thinking about penning my girls up but they LOVE to free range. It's that time of year again when the predators start coming back in full force and I don't want to lose any, so they will have to get over being penned up :P
DeleteHi Kelly, as for ducks, yes they are MUCH messier than chickens...I had 8 at one point and now I am down to one...coons and oppossums got 'em....and yes they are a 'greasy' bird and I personally do not like them to eat, but I love the eggs...
ReplyDeletehi, Kelly. what do you do with those roosters? do you butcher them yourself?
ReplyDelete