Chicken Farming

At last - my post about chicken farming. Basically, I just had to make sure I didn't let the experience of raising chickens go undocumented.

When we got here to Burney, we had a couple from the ward, who had to move a few months after we came. They happened to have 4 chickens, and they couldn't take them with them. Henry had been wanting to raise chickens before (the way he's been wanting to raise a cow for milk, a sheep for milk, and a goat for who knows what), and he jumped at the opportunity. For only $40 we could have the 4 chickens, the coup, any left-over feed, any supplies they had, and...we took them.

Henry arranged for an agreement with his dad that he'd provide the fencing we'd need for our little back-yard chicken area, and we'd take care of the chickens, and share the eggs they'd lay.

By the time we could pick up the chickens, however, only 2 were left. The other 2 got eaten by "something". Oh well. Two is better than none. But it turned out that the one chicken stopped laying once it got moved to our house. So, we basically only had one chicken laying eggs, and we decided that 6 eggs a week weren't worth all the hassle. Thus, Henry set out to get more chickens.

In May, he picked up 2 chickens that were supposedly 10 weeks old. Egg-laying chickens don't lay eggs until they're about 6 months old or so. So, we still had to wait on our eggs for a while, but at least we were expanding the flock. You also need to know that you cannot just add an uneven number of chickens to an "old herd". Chickens can be sort of, urm, cliquish, and they'll peck the newcomers if they're not matching them in number. So, we had to get at least 2. But, before you knew it (I think 2-3 days into it), one of the new chickens had disappeared. Henry thought it had somehow gotten outside the fencing, and gotten lost. No prob - he quickly bought 2 more chickens (also about 10 weeks old), and voila - we had a nice crowd of chickens now (5 total, in case you can't keep track of the numbers).

The non-laying old chicken, however, was a meanie and harrassed the newbies. Thus, we cast her out of the chicken area, and let her just roam free in the back yard. Well, "we" wouldn't be correct. Henry let her. I didn't mind at first, but when she started pecking the windows on the door to the back yard, and would poop right in front of it (thus occasionally having the kids step into bird poop when going outside) - I was getting less enthused about that free-range chicken of ours. I wanted her gone. Henry didn't know how to slaughter a chicken though, and so we just hoped to find someone who'd take her. I hung up a sign, but no luck. Time passed.

One Sunday, we got home from Church, and...meanie chicken was gone. We couldn't find her anywhere. We couldn't find a trace of her. And she didn't return at night. We'd tried before for her to 'just get lost'. But somehow she'd always come back at night and wander into her little cage ( chickens roost at night, which means they want to come somewhere inside/sheltered and hop on a bar or something and sleep?). I was so happy we had finally resolved the pooping, wandering free-range chicken issue.  But my happiness wouldn't last.

A few days later, another chicken disappeared. And it happened to be the only one who was laying eggs at the time. That didn't make me happy. And now our flock of chickens had dwindled from 5 to 3 in just a few days. Chicken No. 2 also disappeared without any signs, so we started to wonder if some hawk or something was snatching the chickens out of their area. We started paying better attention, and actually closing the coop at night. But a week later, when we had forgotten to close the coop, we were only greeted by 2 chickens in the morning.

Arghhhhhh....months of feeding those silly chickens, getting basically no eggs, buying more chickens, and...now we were basically back to square one. It was so frustrating. But hey, we still had our 2 chickens.

Then one morning, when I walked over to Henry's parents' house, past our 2 chickens, I heard a sound. A sound that I wasn't supposed to hear if I ever wanted to get eggs out of those chickens - I heard a crow. A rooster crow. And the crowing sound came very clearly from our chicken coop.

Yup, our one little hen was a rooster. Fantastic. NOT! Those rooster are so loud. Chickens don't really make any noise at all, but that freakin' rooster would wake up the kids every morning with his crow. Alba would start crowing back from her bed early in the morning and silly stuff like that (ok, that part was actually pretty cute). Henry wouldn't believe it at first. He insisted it was a hen, and that she'd only get excited in the morning when he opened the coop and got some food. Sure, Henry. That huge, strutting, feather-fluffing, aggressive, fighting hen with a huge comb on its head that happens to crow early in the morning when the sun gets up is ONLY excited to see you...I named the rooster "Henry's Little Hen", because, ya know..

So, there we were. Months later. Still no eggs. Lots of dead chicken of which we got to eat none, and we were down to 1 hen and a rooster. We were getting a bit tired of trying to raise chickens. It seems a lot easier to just spend 3 bucks at the store and buy a dozen eggs or so than going through all this hassle. But we still had that one chicken. For maybe a week. Then, one night, Henry and I both woke up in the middle of the night because we heard these crazy loud noises coming from the back yard. Henry ran out in a dash...but he was too late. Something had taken the last chicken.

And the rooster was literally the last man standing. I was done. So, when a guy from Church was over at Henry's parents house and said he'd know someone who'd take the rooster, I didn't think twice.

I figured we were done with chicken farming. I was done. But Henry is not one to throw in the towel after going "only" through about 8 chickens. A few weeks ago, he bought more. 3 little chickens, which the owner guaranteed are not roosters, or we can bring them back. We put them in the coop, and the next morning...we were already down to two. Henry was ready to rip out his hair, and I could only laugh.

However, it turned out that we only were dealing with an esacpee. This chicken has gotten out a few times by now and roamed around. I've named her "Houdini" since. As of now, we still have all 3 chickens. They're also younger ones, so they won't lay for a few more months. But, at least they're still alive. However, after watching them for a few weeks now, Henry, his mom and I have a sneaky feeling, we've got another rooster in the mix. Again.

We'll know when we hear the first crow. So, if you're trying to figure out whether it's worth raising chickens...don't ask me. Their manure is great for gardening. The kids love the chickens, and they're actually (to my own surprise), sort of fun and cute little back yard friends. And if you can keep them alive, those fresh eggs may be a real perk. I just wouldn't know about that...yet.