Thread: Anyone raising chickens

yea well you dident get the last 8 they had in that big pen that they wanted for other animals lol i am happy with the deal i got and now im finding new things to feed them everyday and i must admit they are entertaining to watch picking bugs out of the yard.

and when they start to lay eggs, that's when you get those double yokers !!!!! I never got a triple .

Several years ago I raised 6 laying hens and 50 meat hens every summer for a few years, the laying hens produce almost an egg a day ( I think 90% or 95%) and the meat hens would average 6 pounds with some monsters getting near 10. I enjoyed the experience and would happily do it again, you just can't beat fresh free range home grown chickens. The reason I stopped was we had a visit from a fisher and he slaughtered the whole lot of them. 54 birds with only their throats tore out, 1 missing bird and one survivor hiding under the water bowl. SWMBO didn't have the stomach for it anymore after that.

Thats sort of the problem we had.The kids got attached to the birds,they all had names and would be carried around like puppys.
They get sick, they die, kids would be all upset,was worse when we had rabbits.
All was a great education for them tho.

well up to 50 ( i must be crazy) nut working on a bigger pen now man these eggs better be good.

Originally Posted by Deerhunter1995

well up to 50 ( i must be crazy) nut working on a bigger pen now man these eggs better be good.

you are going to need a good size fridge to keep them cold and you better start collecting all the egg cartons you can get your hands on before they start laying,your gonna need them with 50 birds !!!

my parents still run a few chickens, not as many as we did when all the kids were home. They can be a handful at times, we had a few years where a bunch of them would up and keel over, but you learn from it. we used to keep them in a shed over-night and let them out during the day, seemed to cut down on the predator problem, also made the trap setting easier when we did get the odd raccoon in the yard. nothing better than properly fresh eggs.

already looked at it and im gonna just buy new cartons from the local feed mill there like 15c a piece and to leaglally sell them they need to be marked ungraded and there needs to be contatc info on it for uninspected uncertified eggs in pa. but i have quite a collection of them for friends and family's eggs. will send ya a dozen if ya like not sure how to keep them cool for the trip up there lol

and your going to need a hot plate to keep the water can from freezing in the winter,maybe 2 with that many birds.and make sure they have some stick ladders and other things to roost on.

just got my pen done last night. 25 nesting boxes. 2 12ft long perches for there roosting pleasure. 30 lb feeder. and 3 gal water they all slept in the big pen last night on the perches and in the boxes. definitaly fun trying to round them up last night to put them in the fenced in 150 ft run that connects the pen