I am one of those people who can usually use a little, shall we say, incentive. I sometimes need a little something to force me into finishing (or even starting) some project or other. I would probably have spent the next year planning my chickenhouse and not building it, but now I am forcing my own hand. Unless I want 8 chickens in the living room, I gotta build the thing.
I really didn't want to wait until next year, and it was getting a little far along in the chick season apparently - our local Wilco went through 1800 chicks in 2 weeks - and it was starting to look like spring, and all that. And I made the mistake of letting my daughter take me to not just one but two farm stores in one afternoon. Soooooo - we have taken the plunge!
I actually did do a little reading about chickens in my Basic Country Skills book. If I had been in possession of Chickens for Dummies I would have read that. But at least I knew there are laying breeds, and meat breeds, and dual-purpose breeds, and what some of all of those are. I knew a pullet from a cockerel (I know you are DYING to know, so pullets are girl chicks and cockerels are boy chicks. While we're at it, let me just inform you that hens are woman chickens, cocks are men chickens, and capons are eunuchs. As if it weren't bad enough just being a chicken. I digress.)
I had a fairly sizeable enclosed dog kennel I could set up in the garage, and I figured this would do for the time being. So armed with my newfound knowledge and a preference for laying breeds off we went to Coastal Farm and Supply. What you need to understand about me is this. My heart does not race at the thought of a trip to Tiffany's or Sak's. But give me an afternoon in Coastal, or a good hardware store, and I am one happy camper. I mean, what can you DO with diamonds anyway, except pass yourself off as a poor imitation of Elizabeth Taylor? But there are so many things you can DO with stuff from the farm store. Plant things, grow things, build things, feed things, ride things, ahhhhhhh. And in the spring, there are babies. Chicks, and ducks, and bunnies, and turkeys, and some ugly strange birds of various kinds I am not too sure about.
So having gotten this far, we were then faced with the quantity question. Basic Country Skills told me to overbuy by 25% to allow for deaths and culling. Coastal told me that the female rate is about 70% (I plan to EAT any males that crop up. I detest roosters. There is a story there.) BCS also told me to anticipate 2 eggs per 3 chickens every day, or that each hen should lay 2 eggs every 3 days. All this is beginning to be A LOT OF MATH. So I just picked a nice round number and went with 8. I will probably get more. But I felt like 8 was good to start. Then there was the matter of STUFF. What my book told me was protein concentrations, not what kind of feed. Not anything about grit. GRIT? Not the kind they serve in the south, apparently. Electrolytes for the water? What kind of feeders? Yikes! So after a nice long chat with the chicken guy, we got a feeder, a waterer, a heat lamp, some chick food, some grit, and bedding.
Then we went to Wilco. My other fave. There, we were lucky enough to snag the last 2 ducklings at either store, bought MORE feed (ducks can die from chick feed), another feeder and waterer, and some electrolytes for the water.
Ducks are a big tradition in our family, starting when my oldest daughter (now 30) was 3 and we got Puddles. Puddles bought the farm in like 3 days, and ML cried herself sick, so we went back and got Puddles 2. P2 grew to adulthood and went to live at a friend's pond. In subsequent years there was a succession of Puddleses, then one year we got 2 and had to come up with another name. So it was Puddles xx and Aflac. Today I just could not bring myself to enter the 21st iteration of Puddles, so we named the ducks Sulu and James Tiberius Kirk, or JT. I know, I know. Just deal, they're my damn ducks.
Naming the chicks took a bit more thought. I mean, there are EIGHT of them, so just remembering them all could be a challenge (never mind telling them apart). So it seemed logical to name them something related to make it easier. The only thing that came to mind in the appropriate numbers were the von Trapp children. SO we now have Liesl, Friedrik, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl. And Maria. Yes, I know, we are very strange.
My other purchase at Coastal was a whole book on chickens, so I have some bedtime reading. And I think we will take a photo of each chicken and write their name on it and put it on the kennel for reference purposes. We have, in no particular order, a white chick of unknown type (which may turn out to be a white turkey that got in the wrong bin - we just thought it was pretty), 2 barred Plymouth Rock, 2 Rhode Island Reds (my fave), a black Australorp, a black sex linked, and a Buff Orpington, which wins the cool name award.
We are pretty excited. And now I absolutely have to go out there and build a chicken house!
