Price?

2.00 for 1 dozen

2.50 for 18

How did I get started?

It all goes to my parents. 2 years ago my parents decided to move to 7 ˝ acres and have a homestead, with chickens, cows, and a BIG garden, etc. When we finally got our chickens I asked if I could be their “chicken lady” and they said yes. So I care for and “play” with the chickens.

          My mom ordered 12 chickens, 3 White Leghorns, 3 Road Island Reds, and 6 Barred Rocks. We put them in a light blue kiddy pool with chicken wire around it, because when they are 3 weeks old they could jump over the side of the pool. When they were in the pool we lost 1 Road Island Red, and 1 Bared Rock. So then we had 10 chicks. Then we moved them from the pool to the coop that we had built.

Our neighbor gave us 3 guinea hens, but we hand to shoot one because it was picking on the others. The guineas are good at keeping the tick population down.

After we got the guineas a stray puppy came and stayed for 5 days. One day when we came home from church one of my Road Island Reds was in the yard, it was dead. The puppy had caught it some how and killed it.

Tip: If you take an egg out of the carton and then replace it to the carton make sure you put the point end DOWN.

I feed them once a day with a ˝ gallon ice cream container. I give them non-medicated feed in the winter, and they are free range all year long. I have to give them feed in the winter because the snow is on the ground and there are no bugs. In the summer I very rarely have to give them feed, they eat bugs, worms and anything they can find.

I have two chicken water jugs that we got from “Fleet Farm”. I switch out the two in the winter because they freeze. In the summer I give them a fresh one in the morning.

For 12 chickens I have 4 nest boxes, nest boxes are regular boxes with straw or hay in them for padding and warmth. The way they are stacked I have 2 on top and 2 on bottom. They like to lay in the bottom right. Most of the time I get ALL 8-9 eggs in that one.

I gather the eggs at night when I “coop” them up. The chickens are on the wooden bar called the roost so I don’t have to go under the chickens but I have to make sure I don’t get pooped on. I get 5-9 eggs a day and I get white ones and brown ones.

I clean the eggs with a damp wash cloth to get the yucky stuff off. If you run water over the egg it will soak up the water. An egg is 90% water. Also, that’s why I have to make sure the water is not frozen; if the water is frozen we get no eggs that day.

I do take my egg cartons back to re-use.

Tip: Is the egg fresh or rotten? Fill a bowl with COLD water, place the egg in and if it sinks all the way it is still fresh. If the tip or if the whole egg floats it is rotten.