Future Cackleberry Keep And The Hens Of Anarchy Posts

Future Cackleberry Keep And The Hens Of Anarchy Posts.

Here's a list of soon-to-come blog posts about raising chickens in an urban environment or your backyard.

Where To Get Your Baby Chicks

Hatcheries and Breeders

How To Choose Your Coop Design

There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Ventilation In A Chicken Coop

Quit Fussing With Your Baby Chickens. They Will Not Die If Left Alone For Two Seconds

You Need A Brooder Before You Need A Coop

What To Feed Baby Chicks

It Will Take Longer Than You Think To Build Your Chicken Coop

Should You Buy Chickens From Craigslist?

Quarantine Is A Must. AKA Don't Let One Chicken Kill Your Entire Flock

Honey, This Costs Way More Than I thought It Was Going To Cost

How To Save Money When Feeding Your Chickens

Chickens Don't Stink Do They?

What To Do With Chicken Poop

and more ...

How To Convince Your Spouse To Raise Backyard Chickens

How To Convince Your Spouse To Raise Backyard Chickens.
How To Convince Your Family To Raise Backyard Chickens.

This one is easy ... lie. Seriously. My husband was really worried about this whole idea. WTF came out of his lips more than one time. Many more. I started to see that it may turn out to be challenging to convince him to raise chickens in our backyard. More specifically, in the backyard next to the golf course.

To be fair to myself, I didn't lie intentionally. So I guess I didn't actually lie. Looking back, it LOOKS like I lied, but I promise you I did not.

I just wanted chickens so dang bad that I agreed to trim my ambitions down to size. I started out thinking that I could handle five or six grown chickens. However, the number three was very pleasing to my husband's ears. I rationalized that three would be perfectly fine with me, but being a novice at the whole raising chickens thing, I absolutely KNEW I would mistakenly kill a few in the beginning process. After all, raising teeny tiny baby chicks had to be really, really hard, right?

Wrong. Raising teeny tiny chicks is really, really easy. But I digress.

Since I thought I would be a terrible novice chicken mama, I ordered seven chicks. Yes, seven. Which is a long way off from three. So you see, I didn't actually lie, I just didn't know any better. Now I do. Now I know that I'm sort of good at this chicken raising thing. And so will you be, most likely.

I also promised my spouse that we were going to do this for next to nothing. After all, most baby chicks are only about two bucks. Although I did almost order two yesterday that were twenty bucks a piece. Thank The Lord someone beat me to the punch and they were sold out before I could press the "buy" button! Chicken Math is catching up to me. (More on Chicken Math in an upcoming post. Sooner rather than later, since Chicken Math is a serious psychiatric disorder that you need to be made aware of rather quickly. It is an evil evil thing.)

I finagled wood and window off craigslist for next to nothing, so I lived up to my next to nothing promise. The glitch with this promise was that my husband tends toward perfectionism when it comes to anything involving wood. (Get your minds out of the gutter. Not THAT wood.) Consequently many, many, MANY trips to Lowe's, Menard's and the local construction outlet were needed to rise to his expectations. I kept saying to him, "Honey, it's only a chicken coop." But my words fell on deaf ears. So I now have a really beautiful coop. (Not complaining.) Plus I did my part by prying apart $15 auto parts shipping crates for the walls and such and a $200 window was found for only $12! I really, really love my window.

The moral to the story or the lesson to be learned is that you really don't have to lie, because when it's all said and done, most likely your spouse, your family, your significant other, your partner, whichever applies, will catch this chicken fever also. At least to some extent. They may not help with feeding, watering, and cleaning very often, but they will rejoice in your happiness and be happy with you. I promise. No lie.

Stay tuned for Step Two of Raising backyard Chickens. Choosing a Hatchery or Breeder.

Step One Is Not Choosing Your Chicken Breeds

Okay, so I lied. Step One Is Not Choosing Your Chicken Breeds. Click here for that post. Step One is actually going back to Deciding To Raise Backyard Chickens.

I've already talked about the benefits of hand raised eggs as the reason. But there are others.
 
A big part of my decision (although I really don't have a specific memory of when this lightbulb went off), had a lot to do with stress relief. I have a very stressful job. Super stressful. And sometimes it really gets to me. I really needed something, a hobbie I guess, that was fulfilling, challenging, and not deemed as frivolous, as I am a no-nonsense sort of gal about many things. Raising chickens seemed to fit the bill.

There are, however, a great many issues that need to be addressed before you take the plunge into chickendom. This is not a "oh well that didn't work out so never mind I guess I won't raise chickens afterall" sort of thing. Why? Duh ... these are living creatures. You don't just throw them away or put them in a garage sale if you decide this isn't for you.

Okay, okay, yes you can eat them if it doesn't work out. (To each his own.)  I actually used this on my husband while I was trying to convince him of this mad scheme of mine. He didn't fall for it. I really thought he would, but then we had this conversation about him growing up on a farm and his chore was always the chicken coop cleaning. Being a kid, he always waited until it was an absolutely putrid mess before doing the cleaning. And then he'd throw the eggs up against the wall because he was ticked he had to clean the coop. It dawned on me during this conversation that this experience might be the reason he doesn't eat much chicken. In fact every time for twenty years that I've cooked chicken for dinner, he's ALWAYS said, "Hmmm, dead chicken for dinner, huh?" Now I know what has been going on in his head all these years. It's actually been a joke between us, as I usually say, "Come get some dead chicken, Honey." Yes, we are sort of weird.

So back to the "why to raise chickens in your backyard." I already mentioned stress relief, but didn't really explain why. Simple. Good, hard work is always satisfying and has always been a de-stresser for me. Stress relief also involves some sort of routine for me. Chicken raising definitely provides a routine. A daily routine. I am not a laying-around-in-a-hammock kinda gal.

Another aspect is how quickly you feel gratification from raising chickens. Inside of two months after hatching, they are ready to go out to the Big Girls Coop. They go from zero to sixty in 4.2 seconds. I mean they go from teeny tiney baby chicks who depend on you for everything to crazy fun teenagers in about two months. And then within five to seven months they've got a job and are bringing home the bacon (laying eggs and providing dinner.) What more could you ask for? In fact, if you decide to tackle the birds-for-meat thing, I believe it's only 10-12 weeks from chick to chicken dinner. There are lots of other reasons for deciding to raise chickens, backyard or not. Perhaps you want a fun family project. Maybe your child participated in a school hatching project and snuck a chick into his backpack. Maybe you want to start trying to be more self-sufficient by providing your own table eggs. Maybe you want to make a little mooney on the side by selling eggs. Maybe you want to start breeding and selling chickens. Maybe you just want an adventure.

Believe me, if that's the reason, then you are truly in for an adventure. A happy adventure.

Join me in my journey, okay?

 

How To Choose Your Chicken Breeds

Step One in Raising backyard Chickens | How To Choose Your Chicken Breeds.

Making the decision to raise chickens in the backyard has been covered, so now it's time to start making some choices. Choice of chickens, choice of coop, choice of run, choice of feed, choices and more choices. Step One, however, is choosing your breeds.

Okay, let's get down to the nitty gritty. You'll need to figure out what breeds of chickens will best fit your situation. For the time being I'm only going to focus on layers. I have zero experience with meat birds and truthfully I'm not sure I could raise a flock of meaties and then slit their throats and eat them. I'm a carnivore, but I'm pretty sure I would gag when I realized my plate of lemon-scented chicken and orzo was actually clucking away in my yard last week.

My first flock consists of all females of the following breeds: 1 Barred Rock, 1 Buff Orpington, 1 Black Australorp, 1 Blue Laced Wyandotte, 1 White Jersey Giant, 1 Easter Egger, 1 Buff Brahma.

These breeds were chosen for the following reasons:  Egg Color - Brown Eggs from six of the breeds and Blue or Green Eggs from the Easter Egger.  Cold Tolerance - I live in Northern Ohio and the winters can get quite bitter. This winter has been a real bitch. Last winter, however, we only had about an inch of snow and temp was mild.  Broodiness - I didn't want all of them getting all motherly (going broody) and refusing to lay eggs. When a hen goes broody they sit in the egg box on eggs hoping to hatch them out. Of course, without a rooster, that would be impossible. While they are broody, though, they do not lay eggs. Five of my hens go broody, the other two infrequently or occasionally. I'm okay with ratio because at some point this spring I am gonna be rollin' in eggs, so downtime from broodiness is fine with me. Plus, I may decide to buy some eggs on eBay and try to have a broody hen hatch them out for me. (Way cheaper and easier than incubating in the house, but not as reliable. More on incubating eggs in another post.)  Disposition - I wanted breeds that had a tendency to be friendly, docile, calm, easy-going, quiet, affectionate, easy-to-handle, makes a good pet, etc., to use a few phrases from the poultry catalogues. What I did NOT want was skittish or flighty. (Yes, chickens fly. Some more than others - and some higher than others.)  Environment - I wanted breeds that did well in confinement, versus needing to free range more often than not. Don't freak. Their coop is spacious enough and they will have a 12 x 6 covered chicken run attached (more on that in another post), plus huge fenced in wooded areas, so don't get all freaky on me thinking they will be in cages or something similar. Confinement is actually a good thing, since it protects them 24/7 from predators. And even living in the city, there are plenty of predators around. In fact, I just found out there are COYOTES on the golf coourse that backs up to my yard. In the city. Coyotes. Raccoons and dogs are the most common, though.

Other criteria which were not as important to me were the following:  Class. Origin. Egg Size. Production.  Production would be important if you plan on selling your eggs or have a very large family that will need (and use)lots of eggs. Or if you think you may need to bribe your neighbors into not complaining about the chickens in your (and sometimes THEIR) yards.

Okay. Now comes the fun part, since I'm a girl and prettiness means something to me. The final criteria for me was what they would look like when they were grown. I wanted a variety. I also wanted to name them, so I only wanted one of each breed, since they usually look basically the same from chicken to chicken within a breed and I didn't want to have to grab them to determine who they were. The name thing isn't necessary of course, but I thought it would be a kick to come up with some crazy or meaningful names. (More on that in another post.) Here are some pics of my original flock at 8 weeks old. Notice that none of them look the same.

More in the next post on where to get your baby chicks. That process is sorta mind-boggling.

Why You Should Raise Chickens

Why You Should Raise Chickens.

This post was supposed to be about How To Raise Chicks or How To Convince Your Spouse That Raising Chickens In The Backyard Is A Good Idea. But I thought there are few other pressing issues first.  This post is about the fundamental reason that a person would want to raise chickens in their backyard. Food. Plain and simple. Food. Healthy food. Yes, baby chickens are cute. Very cute. And hens are quite simply so wonderful that it's obvious they are a gift from God. Truly a gift. But the bottom line is this ... home raised eggs are better for you and better tasting. Happy Chickens Lay Better Eggs. 'Cus I said so. See below a photo of a store bought egg (God only knows how old this thing was) and an egg that one of my real estate clients gave me from one of her home raised hens. You will notice quite a difference ...   This is one of the things that sold me on backyard chickens. Yum Yum. If you need any more incentive, nutrition-wise, check out this frittatta I made from our 6 month old Black Copper Maran eggs that were only 1-5 days old ...  Well crud, can't find that pic. Just take my word for it that the color of that frittatta was a testimony to omega. Not to mention it was delicioso. Seriously. Okay, I promise I will tell you tomorrow how to convince your honeybunny that chickens really do have a special space in your backyard. See ya manana.

Backyard Chicken Keeping for Beginners

Backyard Chicken Keeping for Beginners.
Not sure how I got started on this Backyard Chicken kick. Really. I have no idea. Usually I remember the exact moment when my crazy lightbulbs go off, but not this time. All I remember is suddenly saying to my husband that I might want to try raising some chickens. I didn't realize how many times I'd said this to him until I noticed on his facebook status a post stating that "my wife is talking about raising chickens. I thought she was kidding around, but I have this funny feeling that she is serious. WTF?" (I'm thinking his use of the word "funny" was meant to be "funny-weird", not "funny-haha". And his use of the phrase WTF was meant to be well, uhm, literal. Oh well.) This was back in November. It is now almost March and I have a story to tell you. Pictures included. It's a good story. I'll even include step-by-step directions on how to raise chickens from hatch to heaven (or from birth to freezer camp.) If you are thinking about raising chickens in your backyard, thinking of becoming an urban chicken keeper, or just want to tick off your husband with a not-so-crazy-afterall hobby, then check back in the coming days for a no-nonsense (okay, maybe a little nonsense), day-by-day account of my journey into "Chickendom." First a little about the name of this blog - and the name of my backyard chicken kingdom, aka hobby farm, Cackleberry Keep and the Hens of Anarchy. "Cackleberry" is an old-fashioned word for egg. You might remember this from your childhood days if you grew up in the country or if your grandma and grandpa had a farm. Makes sense, right? Visualize, okay? "Keep", if your heritage is English or Scottish or Irish, Gaelic, Celtic or similar (mine is Scottish), is an old timers' word for a protective structure, such as a castle, or in this case such as a chicken coop. Chicken Coops are meant to protect chickens from predators. That is pretty much their sole purpose. In my case, however, another purpose is to provide eye-candy in my backyard. Yes, that is a golf course in the background. Yes, we are raising chickens next to a golf course. Yes, a golf course. In the city. And it is perfectly LEGAL! More on that in another post. Back to the name ... The Hens of Anarchy is my salute to the show Sons of Anarchy. Don't know why, I'm not a motorcycle person AT ALL, but I just love that show. (Probably has something to do with the lead character Jax. Such a hunk a burnin' love.) It is also a tongue-in-cheek mock, reflective of all of the doomsday predictions in late 2012. You know, Mayan Calendar predicting the end of the world and such. Okay, enough for this post. You get the gist. Next post will be about Day One, also known as How To Order Chicks. No wait, Day One should be about How To Convince Your Spouse That Raising Chickens In The Backyard Is A Good Idea.