I Have a Chicken Addiction and Other Stupid Facts

Hi, My name is Jocelyn and I am absolutely addicted to chickens.

Do you think there is a 12 step program for this?  There should be. Chickens are the gateway livestock, and it is way too easy to become addicted.  I have geese because I had chickens.  I have ducks because I had geese.  I will have guinea fowl, because what the hell and why not.  You see the slippery slope?  Chickens are cute, small, portable, cheap, and very useful.  There are always tons of them at the feed store and online, and they are so tempting, especially after a long, cold winter.

These are our layers right now.  Hermione, the Barred Rock, is in the front here.

We started with 10 chickens here at Chicken Scratch.  10.  We had more eggs than we could eat, and were selling the extras.  It was going well, so the plan was to add 10 more this spring, for an even 20.  When chick ordering time came around, the 10 turned to 15.  Up to 25 now.  Then we lost one of our laying hens.  So we were down to 24.

A Sicilian Buttercup chick

24 is a nice even number, so we'd stop there.  But then there was the Emmet/Arthur problem of too many ganders and not enough geese (poor Ginger).  Thought I'd alleviate that by a trip to the feed store to order a goose for each of them.  But here in NY, you can't just order 2 of anything, when it comes to fowl, 6 is the minimum.  So, I added 3 Ameraucanas and 2 guineas to my order, and had 7 and was good to go.  3 more chickens would bring us up to 27, an odd number, but it would be OK.

A Black Copper Maran chick.

Chick time came in the feed store, and I got the Ameraucanas.  I knocked together a quick (read: badly put together) brooder box for them (the other two were filled with geese), and off we went.  Went back to the feed store for wood chips.  They had Silkies.  Thought of my mom, who wants to start with chickens this year.  She had wanted a Silkie.  So I asked for one, and Katie, who works in the feed store, asked if I could take the two she had left instead.  One Silkie for me, one for mom.  Ok.  Up to 28 now.

My mother's silkie chick.  Mine was still in the brooder.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the mail order chicks finally arrive.  One Ameraucana is DOA.  Another, the Ancona, dies that day.  I have no idea why, but there you have it.  We are down to 26.  26 is a nice, even number of chickens.  Good.  Done.

A Salmon Faverolle chick.

5 toes!!

Go back to the feed store yesterday.  Buy some more wood chips and look at the chicks.  Yeah....do you know where this is going?  Casually mention to Katie that there are a few chicks in the box that seem to be getting a little long in the tooth--just making conversation.  So many tiny ones, and there are these Barred Rocks that are a lot bigger, you know?  So she asks if I want them, and that she'll give them to me for a discount.  I agree, because I thought there were two.  Two can't hurt, right?  There were four.  Can't back out now, so I took them home.

New Barred Rocks.  We call them The Hermiones.

The count is now 30.  We went from 9 chickens to 30 chickens.  It's obvious an intervention needs to take place sometime soon.  And I need to find an outlet for all the eggs.  Oh boy.

Either a Speckled Sussex, or a Welsummer.  They both look the same to me.

So what did we learn here?

1. I am a chicken addict.
2. Chickens are the gateway livestock and lead to other types of livestock.
3. I single-handedly increased our chicken flock over 3 fold in a month's time.
4. I like even numbers when it comes to my livestock.
5. I should not go to the feed store and look in the chick room.
6. I will have WAY too many eggs later this year, and will be giving them to anyone who rings the doorbell or walks past the house (or drives past, or looks in my direction).
7. The eggs will be pretty.  Just think of all the colors we'll get.
8. If there are roosters in this batch (beyond what I planned for), then we'll have chicken to eat.
9. I will never remember all the names of the chickens, even though my children will name every one of them. I will call them all "Chicken".
10. I will not be placing a chick order next year (or the year after that).
11. My husband is a saint and deserves a shrine to be built to him.

One of the Ameraucanas from the feed store.  My daughter says her name is Molly.

Don't do what I've done, everyone.  Learn from me.  Stay off the slippery chicken slope!
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