Lets' Play Chicken!

[Dennis1209]

What's up guy's?

 

Chickens, they're wonderful and let me tell you why. I'm a newbie with chickens and this is the fourth year of my chicken experience. Everything has gone great and in addition to delicious free eggs, I did something different this spring / summer / fall, I let them out of their coop / run and let them free range during the day. I did that because they're getting old and their production has dropped by 60% and thought I'd let them enjoy a little freedom.

 

I didn't know how many I would lose to predators like hawks letting them out during the day. Sort of funny because I've noticed hawks very interested and flying over head and landing in near by trees scoping them out but, one has never attacked? I was also concerned about if they would return to their coop when it got dark. No problem there, like clock work, just close the chicken run and done at dusk!

 

For some reason they will gravitate toward and around the house first and work their way outward, scratching and pecking away at anything. The leaves that gather at those annoying places that always need raking are taken care of by the scratching of the chickens, but I digress somewhat, as I just thought of it today.

 

In a normal year, we have at least a few outside bugs per week make their way into our home and the wife gets all skittish and bent out of shape. "Dennis" do something! Some of them are the critters that have lots of legs and some look like some sort of roach. No one wants bugs in their homes!

 

In a normal spring / summer I pick off ticks left and right around here from my yard, but not this year. I only recall picking off "one" tick all this year!

 

The incredible editable egg is more than that.

 

 

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

I loved mine and my turkeys too...

 

Miss em dearly and next spring we will have another flock....

[Timestepper]

We have bantams and let them free range until the leaves drop. After that the hawks and eagles have a field day and a couple winters ago we lost half our flock in one day thanks to my wife forgetting to close the door to the run. Oh, that's the other thing - besides having a nice roomy henhouse with enough room for chickens, roosts, nesting boxes and feed storage, I also have a completely enclosed 12X16 chicken run so they can get "outside" 365 1/4 days a year. An incandescent light (soon to be non-existent in this increasingly moronic nation) in the henhouse, besides providing heat, ensures that egg production doesn't drop off overmuch during fall and winter months.

 

At last count we had 16 hens and three roosters and we love 'em to death! Our experience has been that our bantys are tamer than the full sized varieties we've had and we've got a couple "favorite" girls who actually come when we call them and then fuss at us until we give them black oil sunflower seeds.

 

And the exceedingly rich little eggs we get can't be topped anywhere this side of heaven!

 

Yep, we do love our little chickens!

Edited October 21, 2013 by Timestepper