This is a long one ….Although I grew up in a small town and had a cousin my age who lived on a farm, personally I haven’t had much to do with chickens in my life. But every since we visited a sustainable farm in Wisconsin and ate some of their chickens and eggs I have been excited about the possibilities. I thought, “How hard can it be?” People in the poorest parts of the world raise chickens, and with all the resources at my fingertips it should be relatively easily.
Spoiler alert: it was NOT easy. Actually, it was one of the most humbling experiences I have had in a while. Honestly, I think I made almost every mistake I could have which goes to show you how adrenaline can really impact your judgment. As I tell the story I will share my mistakes in italics along the way. Many of these items (despite a fair amount of research) I didn’t know until after the fact but hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. If nothing else it will be entertaining although it certainly wasn’t for us at the time!
A lot of people online talk about the $3K egg, and there is a lot of truth to that. To get that first egg many people spend thousands on all the things they need. We spent more like $800 on everything we needed and I was really lucky because Lee built the coop, and we had existing fencing on the property that was already mostly what we needed, and the previous owners left behind a hefty supply of additional rolls of fencing and posts. The price of premade chicken coops is ridiculous and most of them are super small accommodating only a couple of birds. Thankfully I had an entire barn stall sitting empty and after researching extensively I saw a version where someone converted the stall into a coop. After some thought Lee agreed this was the best way to go and got to work. The pictures below were several days of HARD, sweaty work in above 90 temps and humidity over 85%. I think its beautiful, but of course Lee can only see the flaws, but no doubt it’s way better than any chicken coop I saw under $4K.
Chicken wire is NOT cheap by the way and a total bear to put up, especially overhead. You need to enclose the chickens completely though because predators will climb up and over. Side note we had read that chicken wire doesn’t always stop predators. Some will rip right through it. So all the work you see below was with the knowledge it might not be enough. I felt so bad for him the half day it took to put the overhead wire in and he had tons of nasty scratches from the wire before he was done. That’s true love!
The area that he spent the most time thinking through before building was the coops. The dimensions can vary depending on the size of the chicken you are going to get (we went with the larger 16″ square) and it was very important to him that I wouldn’t have to bend over to get eggs, so he went to extra trouble to build them high and put ledges and doors on them so I could access the eggs from outside the coop. Since this coop (which I bought for pretty cheap) was what I had initially in mind what I ended up with was a chicken coop palace in comparison.
It’s worth mentioning here that there is a TON of conflicting information about nesting boxes. No one can decide on whether chickens like sharing and the size and material are also up for debate. One woman swears that cat litter boxes are her chickens favorite while others are adamant about size and individual nests. WE decided to play it safe and make extra nesting boxes figuring if they shared we would be no worse off and it would give us room to expand later. I don’t regret the number of boxes but you will see below the placement was less than optimal.
While Lee was working on the coop I decided to take a shot at creating a dustbath and a homemade roost. In both cases my work was much less competent than his but I was super proud of myself when I finished my contributions.
So everything looks great right? Well, here’s what we learned later. Chickens will naturally sleep in the highest point of their pen and my roosting bar wasn’t even close. Actually, since Lee built the boxes so high they sleep in the boxes at night which is not great because then the boxes are full of poop every morning. In all the research I did on making roost I totally didn’t get that it had to be at the highest point. That meant that Lee had to go in after the fact and try to build a roost which would have worked much better if we had taken it into account from the beginning. He offered to rip out the top row of boxes but I said no way after he did all that work.
Another thing we didn’t really understand was how much poop the chickens would generate. Yes it all looks pretty but it’s also covered in poop which is why people are so careful about where they put their roosts. Several people we learned after the fact build a tray under the roost and fill it with kitty litter so the poop is easy to clean. There is a TON of contradictory information about how often the coops needs cleaned (from weekly to yearly yes, I am not kidding) and the poop bother Lee more than me. Probably because he spent so much time on it. Alot of the advice given is based on the size of the flock and type of chicken but the information is presented as generically applicable. Honestly getting chicken information is a lot like getting RV information with a lot of people thinking their way is the only way.
So we had the coop now we just needed chickens. Craigslist Farm And Garden section turned out to be the best place in our area to find livestock and after a lot of research I decided I wanted Golden Pullets. I found a guy who was selling 8 pullets (chickens that are 14 weeks old and just ready to start laying) for $100. Since I didn’t have a way to transport 8 chickens I said I would pay an additional $50 for him to bring them to me and we made arrangements for a Thursday.
I spent the next several days obsessively researching this particular kind of chicken in particular what the heck I was going to do with all the eggs. Initially I only wanted a few chickens, but these were a package deal and I went down the internet rathole of freezing, pickling, etc. I was so worried about excess eggs that after the guy blew me off on three separate delivery dates, I wasn’t that upset about walking away. Then on Saturday I found a couple with Rhode Island Reds which are very good foragers and common in Ohio. They were $25 each but it was worth the price, so Lee and I took an hour-long drive to go pick some out.
Turns out this was a good choice because the couple was extremely nice and the chickens were gorgeous. They had a huge flock and getting the chickens in hand was the hardest part which to be honest I was zero help. Lee stayed outside and took some pictures and video which are hysterical, but you stay calm when a chicken is flying at your face!
We ended up with five chickens in three different cat carriers, a dozen eggs, and tons of great advice. Once we got them home we put them in the coop and let them acclimate a little bit. They seemed pretty friendly and pretty calm in the coop and I was happy things had gone so well.
I wish I could end the story here, I really do, but what happened next was sheer stupidity on our part, and probably chicken malpractice. Lee want to let them out in the yard to watch them forage and despite the advice of the lady we got them from we let them out. And they were fine scratching around in the yard until we decided that we wanted them to go back in. Turns out these chickens can really fly and they also run really fast. Not sure why I thought it would be different after my experience catching them initially, but we absolutely couldn’t get them to go back in. One got in a bush and absolutely wouldn’t come out so we got the bright idea to bring Jack out and see if he could flush him.
We think of Jack as a person most of the time, but when he saw the chicken he went absolutely crazy. Not only did he chase the chicken out of the bush but he also ripped its tail feathers out and chased another one all the way down the road. He only had a flea collar on when we let him out which ripped off in my hand when I tried to catch him. We were convinced he was going to kill one or all of the chickens and it was only dumb luck that stopped that from happening. At the end the dog was in the house and two of the chickens ran away. I was an absolute mess because it was totally our fault and I felt terrible about how stupid we had been. We also realized we were absolutely going to need a fence for them to roam in and free range was not as easy as it seemed.
Here’s the deal on free ranging. Most people buy chickens who are very young and so they grow up in the coop and then by the time you let them loose they know where the food is. These chickens were grown and we learned later it can take up to two weeks to acclimate to a new space. To be fair the woman told me that when I bought them but it was along with alot of other information and did not jive with my mental picture of how things would go.
The other thing about free range chicken is most people have large flocks and understand they will lose some to predators. Since we only had five, and expensive ones at that, I didn’t want to lose any unless I absolutely had to. I also live on the corner of two busy roads and chickens will run across them if allowed. No one knows why, people have been asking for hundreds of years. The woven livestock pasture fencing we have wasn’t enough to keep them out of the road and the last thing I wanted was to cause an accident.
So I had three chickens, a ton of guilt, and needed to get fencing up right away. I was on vacation that week but it was also super-hot so I went out on Monday (Lee was at work) and started using the fencing and snow fence we had laying around to put up some fence. I knew I wouldn’t get it completely done but thought I could start with existing fencing and had some success tying snow fence to it. I didn’t think it would keep predators out but it would keep chickens in and I felt pretty good about the progress I made. Honestly it helped me feel like I was taking control of the situation.
Unfortunately, I was so distracted as I was working through things that at some point I was in the garden and fell spraining my ankle and hitting the wood on a raised bed. I heard a loud crack and at first I thought I broke my ankle but ultimately it was a really bad sprain and nasty bruise. Lee came home to me with ice on my ankle, a partially finished fence and still three chickens.
Thankfully though he thought we could finish the fence and the next morning he woke up early to get started. He woke me up with the fantastic news that one of the chickens had “come back to the roost” and was standing outside the coop that morning talking to the other chickens. The chicken miracle got me motivated so I wrapped my ankle and hobbled out to help with the fence. We used a combination of plastic chicken fence (I bought from tractor supply) and various fencing and we finally got the fence done. It was alternately hot as heck or pouring down rain so we had to work around the elements. Also, we kept seeing the fifth chicken standing in our front yard but as soon as we got close to her she would run across the street into the huge soybean field. After one night of standing in the pouring rain, stopping traffic so she wouldn’t get run over, and this nice farm kid getting out of his truck in the pouring rain and trying to help me catch her I was like screw that chicken I am fine with four! Plus with the fence done we could at least open the door to the coop although the traumatized chickens wouldn’t come out very far unless pushed.
Right after the fence was done the fifth chicken finally came home. I can’t believe it lived for four whole days, but we found it under the raspberry bush in my garden. Of course, the fencing was up so it was much harder, but Lee and I held up towels and gently maneuvered it through the fences, around the barn and finally into the coop. Sucess and all my chickens had come home to roost! As a side note I now know where all these saying come from. Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the crazy lady who didn’t know what she was doing. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch…I get it! And many others.
At this point we just let the chickens chill for a week. The dog still goes nuts when he sees them, but Lee’s next project was to finish his fenced in back yard area which is now done. I also added a nylon net above part of their grounds to give them extra shade and predator bird protection, but they still don’t come out much. In all fairness it’s been super hot but I do see them being more active in the mornings and in the evenings. One note is that they can fly over the fence if they really want to but we have only seen that a couple of times and they are staying close now. Still no eggs but this breed doesn’t lay until 4 1/2 – 5 months and we are not quite there yet. Plus the heat and the stress will definitely delay egg laying. Also while they are growing back feathers (which Jack tore out) they often wont lay either. Honestly at this point I am just glad they are all alive and they are calming down. It’s not their fault I made their first days so stressful so I will take the eggs when and if they come!
To sum up I don’t regret getting them but the initial outlay is way more than we thought it would be. Still we have the infrastructure now and we can expand the flock as we desire. Or not..honestly five chickens at this point is more than a match for me 🙂 Oh and please be kind in your comments. I don’t think my fragile ego can take much more!!
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