This past spring was the first time we ever had chickens in our back yard. I had ordered 5 one-day old laying hen chicks, but when I went to pick them up, I was told the order fell through for some reason. We still wanted chickens, so we ended up going to a local neighborhood where a family was selling chicks. However, there was no guarantee that we would be getting any laying hens. The chicks were absolutely adorable. We picked out a speckled one, a black one, a brown one, a yellow one, and a grey one.
Within a few weeks we could already tell that at least 3 of them were roosters! We have neighbors, so we didn’t feel right about having 3 roosters crowing. We would soon have enemies, that’s for sure. So, once the roosters started crowing, we had to send 2 of the roosters to freezer camp, well actually, they made lovely chicken soup!
Later on, a kind lady on an online poultry group reached out to me and said she had 3 lovely hens to give away to a good home as they didn’t have the facilities to house them for the winter. I happily picked up the 3 hens. For the first time ever, we had fresh eggs daily. And our remaining rooster really liked the new arrivals and became very protective of them. Sadly, our two original hens never laid eggs and they did not like the new hens at all. They were very mean to them. We had to send those to the chicken soup pot as well.
So now we just have our one original rooster and the 3 laying hens. They have been doing well, and we usually get 2 to 3 eggs every day, which means I haven’t had to buy eggs from the grocery store since we picked up the hens.
There’s something really special about having chickens and I really enjoy taking care of them and sometimes I just watch them and their silly antics. They are very entertaining. If you have ever considered having back yard chickens, I would highly encourage it. I don’t think you will regret it.
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