joy in the Mornings

It’s not hard - or expensive - to establish your own little flock of chickens to supply eggs.

Eggs are the whole reason I got my chickens.

Yes, it’s cheaper to buy eggs in the store, BUT they don’t have the flavor or nutrition of fresh eggs. And you also don’t have the satisfaction of knowing that your care helped produce those eggs.

Here  are a few tips for starting your home flock.

1. The chickens - you must decide if you will buy mature birds that are already laying eggs or if you’ll buy chicks then raise them to maturity. Buying as chicks is probably more expensive because you have the cost of chick starter feed, housing and bedding. It is also more work.

To start with baby chicks you will need a warm place to keep them safe, like a box in a utility room. You will also need a heat lamp to provide warmth for the chicks. The babies will need this warmth until they have “feathered out” or their soft down feathers have been replaced with adult feathers. This usually takes about 6-8 weeks, give or take. So during that time, the babies must be kept warm in a box. After they’ve feathered out they can be put outside into a chicken house or pen.

Chicks can be bought mail order (see www.cacklehatchery.com for a hatchery I’ve had experience with), bought at a local farm and feed store (such as TSC and Rural King) or hatched from a home flock. I’ve bought straight-run chicks (this means you don’t know whether you are getting male or female chicks as they are generally difficult to sex. Sexed chicks can be bought as a few local stores and always ordered from mail-order hatcheries.) from my local Rural King in the past.

The drawback to buying straight-run chicks is you never know what you will get. If you want birds for both eggs and meat, no big deal. Any extra roosters (males) can be butchered for meat and the pullets (young female birds that have not yet begun to lay eggs or completed their first molt) will be kept for eggs.

This year I was blessed by a friend who had decided to try their hand at hatching eggs from their flock. They gave me eight day-old chicks and I raised them to adulthood. Those are the chickens I now have. Those eight ended up including three hens and give roosters. I gave four of the roosters to friends who wanted them for the meat (I didn’t want to bother with it) and now I have a small flock of one rooster and three hens.

If you opt to buy adult birds, that cost will generally run $3-5 per adult hen, but these must be bought in your local area. Good places to start looking for adults laying hens would be www.craigslist.org, your local newspaper, or your local farm store.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss housing.