So You Want To Raise Chickens eh?

Seemed simple enough remove chicken cages from the woods on a former abandoned property a friend had recently purchased and I could have them for free. Since each cage was about 11 – 12 feet long and would house 11 – 12 chickens each with their own separate little pen this seemed like a great deal considering there was 14 cages in all. So Easter Sunday bright and early I woke up and drove over to the property with my trailer and proceeded to haul the cages out of the woods. Vines had grown up in between them so I had to cut them free in order to drag them all out but eventually after 4 hours of hard work and three trips back and forth I had the cages all neatly stacked up on the back of my property.

Visions of free eggs and self-sufficient living filled my head picturing happy free ranging chickens running around leaving me piles of yummy fresh eggs. I then began researching chickens thinking I should get about 50 until I found out they are shipped as chicks and wouldn’t even begin to start laying eggs until they were 7-8 months old. On top of that they needed special feed, warming lights, eye-dropper feeding and frankly as much as my visions of free ranging chickens were I wasn’t about to become mother hen to 50 babies. It was then I had the brilliant idea to trade or barter some of the cages for what I wanted so I typed up an ad on Craigslist and offered the cages for $50 each or trade 6 chickens that were laying for a cage. A day or two went by and I got numerous calls mostly screwballs wanting to know if I had chickens for sale or eggs and a few who thought $50 was to much for cages that would cost $180 if they went out and purchased one new, these by the way were in excellent almost new condition so to those folks I simply suggested they might be happier purchasing a new cage then trying to save any money on a reasonably priced one.

On the third day a guy named Paul called me and asked if I was willing to take 12 chickens for 2 of the cages to which my reply was naturally yes. He told me he come over on the weekend and drop them off and pick up the cages so we agreed on a time to meet. Sunday came and Paul showed up with the chickens and I was so thrilled to have them I gave him an extra cage in the trade because he told me they had just started to lay. It was during this time another friend called me to ask what I was doing that day and I told them I’d have to call them back because my chickens had just arrived so he said he stop over to see them. Here’s where the story gets interesting and why one should seriously consider all the options before raising chickens.

Day One: Arrival

About ten minutes later as Paul and I were putting the chickens (Bantams) in the cages my friend’s wife shows up with four small children and their high-strung labor doodle (aka bird dog) who is still a 90 pound puppy. It was unknown to me that he had called her after speaking with me and told his wife he’d meet her at my house. As I’m about to tell them don’t let the dog out of the car I turn around as a chicken runs past me and notice the little Bantams are still small enough to squeeze through the feeding openings of the cage compartments and are now running free. At the same time this is going on the kids come running over along with the dog who immediately begins chasing the chickens to see how far the chickens will fly in different directions. In less than 5 minutes I had 12 chickens that had never seen my land at all scattered over 5 acres of property with kids and dogs following them as they got further and further away from the intended spot I had for them.

About this time my friend calls back and asks if his wife has shown up so I tell him yes they are here and have made sure the chickens can fly and before he gets here to help round them up would he stop by the feed store and grab me a bag a chicken feed. Paul in the meantime has loaded up his cages and tells me not to worry they will eventually all come back and since I was so nice to give him a extra cages if I lose any he’d be happy to replace them and I made some joke about needing 12 more since mine were no where to be seen. My buddy shows up shortly after he leaves with the feed and wonders where the chickens are as his wife begins asking me what I have to drink in the house because she thirsty. I tell her she’ll have to fend for herself and just go inside while I try to round up the chickens. After about an hour as I’m wandering through the woods near my house trying to herd chickens back to where I can catch and cage them she begins calling me saying she broke the bottle of vodka on the kitchen floor so the kids need to be careful inside.

Now I’m a wee bit miffed so I call my friend over and explain the situation, dude, I JUST got these hens, they have no idea where they are yet so would it be possible if your wife cleans up my $30 bottle of vodka she broke and then load the kids in the car along with the dog and get them out of here until I can get things settled down”. Thankfully they comply and I let them know as soon as I have the chickens use to being here they are more than welcome back to see them but being that they just arrived let’s let them settle in first. The rest of the day is spent herding 7 chickens back toward my house, 5 are missing, 3 are in the woods so really only 2 that I know of are gone. Just before it gets dark I take a head count and have 9.

Day 2

The chickens wouldn’t go into the cages no matter how hard I tried and every time I got close to them they’d fly away so fuck it, I was going to free range them anyway. I take a head count before I have to go to work and there’s 11. I give them water and spread feed out for them and they seem quite happy clucking and eating when I leave for work. During the day I stop in and purchase a feeder tray and a watering device totaling $23.00 along with the feed my friend picked up my free eggs have already cost me $33.00. I quickly calculated I can make this up quickly since they are suppose to lay at least 9-10 eggs a day so I’ll be in the black in no time. The plan is working somewhat.

End of the day arrives and I get home to find the chickens have tore my rock garden to pieces and uprooted every plant I had in it so I spend the next 2 ½ hrs replanting and fixing the rock garden. Normally it wouldn’t have been a big deal but being that every rock in it is white quartz I tilled or dug up from various planting projects around the house it represents a fair amount of work in addition to looking nice. The girls watch as I do this clucking and scratching at the dirt. Dusk comes and I manage to round up three and put them in their cages, which takes about an hour. The rest decided to fly up into the tree near my house as I was chasing the other 3 around and are impossible to get down without risking injury to myself since is now dark outside.

Day 3

5:12 am, why are their chickens outside my bedroom window? Ahhhhhhhhhhhh I’ll take car of it later when I wake up, DING OMG that’s where I planted the moonflowers and rare morning glories!!! Quickly I hop up and go outside to see the ladies have torn the hell out of they rock garden once more and have found the trellis I was growing my moonflowers and rare morning glories on. Needless to say those are history, the girls are plucking and make all sorts of chicken noises I take to mean, “hey, were hungry”, so I go over to the shed and get the feed out, fill the containers, fill the watering unit they spilled over and give them breakfast then go back inside to catch a nap before I have to wake up.

7:32am walk outside and see no ladies so I go around the back of the house to find them tearing up my month old green beans, no use in wondering about the squash that was growing nicely either since they have already harvest it for me, a bit early but I’m sure they thought well as they did it. I dawns on my then to train them so I spray them with the hose to get them out of my back garden area and herd them over to where I’d like them to stay tempting them with a big pile of food, it works! 8:15am I’m in the truck headed to work thinking how clever I am to have trained my girls so quickly and call a few friends to brag about my super smart chickens.

1:04 pm arrive home to find the girls have not only finished destroying the rock garden in addition to throwing the rocks everywhere I no longer have to worry about my wildflower flower garden since they have retiled all the young plants for me back down to dirt, nothing is left. They greet me from the potato bed as if to say, “hey dad, remember those two month old gourmet blue potato plants you were wondering if they would grow well, we took care of them for you too. Once more with the hose and the feed getting them back to where I would like them to stay, free range yes but come on girls within the designated area please. Getting out back I see they had been busy there too as 45 baby apple trees I started from seed last fall and were about 4 inches high are all tipped over and laying on the ground roots exposed to the harsh sun, great! It dawns on me, THE GREENHOUSE, but after checking it I see they haven’t found it yet. With lunch time over I go back to work with a silent prayer they find something else to do besides wrecking all the work I’ve put in before they got here. Oh yeah, still no eggs!

7:08pm get home to find the girls in the front flower beds again and want to strangle them or myself for thinking I have smart chickens. Chase them out of the beds with the lure of more food and the hose sprayer, which now they actually seem to like and notice the leader the one my daughter calls Miss Money Penny is calling the shots on my flock. In fact they all seem to do what she says except Princess Laya (because she’s always sitting when I find her) and the one I like best, Henny Penny. Not wanting chicken for dinner I head up the road to talk to a farmer that’s a friend of mine and begin telling him the woeful tale of my beautiful gardens and the girls, which amuses him greatly.

“Told yaw,” he begins, “You got to gather them birds up and put them in a coop or you’re not going to have nothing growing over there except for your temper”. “Chickens love to scratch and more than that they love digging things up as they look for something to eat”. I explain the food and how there’s no eggs and all the rest and he tells me I need to be mixing oyster shells in with their food as it helps digestion and shells, so with the renewed knowledge I head back home to get the girls out of the gardens they must be in to find them all in the tree again acting like everything is alright with the world. I have just enough time to fix the rock garden and replant the damage they did to the wild flower beds before it gets to late to see.

Day 4

4:59am, instantly awaken to the sound of chickens on the back deck where my 200 super rare tomatos are growing. Spring out of bed and open the back door to find disaster has come a bit earlier today as over ¾ of the tomato’s are gone and the rest look like Godzilla trod through them on his way to Tokyo. Step out onto the porch and onto a planting knife I had stuck into the railing of the deck within easy reach thereby cutting a chunk out of the side of my foot and grabbing at it fall down into a pile of fresh dirt and chicken poop. Seriously this isn’t how I imagined it, I’m suppose to be waking up to gentle clucking and go out and find eggs in the beautiful hay lined cages with my girls singing some fucking Disney morning song, instead I have Satan’s dumbest most destructive birds, even Henny Penny is in the mix. Miss Money Penny bolted as soon as the door was cracked leaving the others to hold the bag, still no eggs!

Get everything cleaned up, save what tomato’s I could and as I finish I hear them out front now. I get all the food and water together and think they’ll settle down to eat as I head out front to find them now in my prized roses I’ve been growing for 6 years scratching at the bases of the roses for food. Once more hose herding around to the side and notice they have decided the best place to crap is all over my landscaping equipment. These really can’t be normal chickens because why instead of a wheel barrel I could care less about do they chose instead to shit all over my eight thousand dollar John Deere walk behind mower, my three $2500 riding mowers and my $3000 garden tractor? If not to make matters worse the rock garden is torn up once again and I was even smart enough to leave plenty of food and water out the night before.

9:43 everything cleaned up, washed, and sparkling again. I’ve even gone out of my way to tarp all the equipment and move it a fair distance from the tree figuring if I can’t join them outsmart them, I apprehensively leave for work. 2:17pm arrive home for lunch to find the girls have figured out how to get under the tarp and crap on the equipment again, seriously, is it this difficult raising egg-less chickens? I consider a free community chicken dinner.

3:41 everything cleaned up again and replanted in record time (I’m getting good at this) the girls feeling comfortable watch me from within a foot away as I do it all and I can see a gleam in Miss Money Penny’s eye. I leave to go to my next client, still no eggs.

On my way there I decide to call them and tell them something came up and I’ll see them tomorrow which is ok with them and figuring this is war decide to break out the big guns. I head over to the hardware store with no idea in mind except get everything I need to build a coop I’ve never made or seen before. $154.89 later I leave the store with everything I need to build an 8X8 coop and on the way home stop at another farmers house I know to ask him why my chickens aren’t laying. I find out I’ve been feeding them broiler food the whole time I’ve had them so all they are doing is getting fat instead of what I had intend in my Disney vision of raising chickens.

6:17pm I get home to find the girls have undone the tarps. I’m baffled because they were tied down this time and not only that they dug up my collection of two year old Japanese maple trees I grew from seed, I’m seeing red but fault myself for no foresight since I was warned, free range my ass these little fuckers are going into a coop tonight. I call a friend and explain the situation and he agrees to come right over and help. He also agrees to pick up LAYER food on the way here. I mentally begin running numbers as I start the coop and figure my free chickens that will provide me with free eggs has now cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 months work and about $600.00.

As I’m building the coop I hear clucking coming from the greenhouse and my heart sinks, I suddenly feel sick. Running over I find the one we name Ellie May inside walking around the edges, nothing has been harmed and I’m instantly overjoyed. I round her up and shoo her out knowing now I MUST get the coop finished tonight as tomorrow is another day of destruction and they now know where the greenhouse opening is. Using construction flood lights we finish the coop around 9:36pm and the only thing left to do is get the ladies in it but since they are now up in the tree for the night it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Day 5

5:04am, WTF this is getting old, how in the hell can they be exactly right outside my window? The freakin’ trellis!!!! Screw it I’m too tired to get dressed so I throw on my slippers and a sweater and head outside in my boxers to find the gals have finish totaling the front gardens, the moonflower garden, and the rock garden once more, I know why now people are driven to murder. But maintaining I get my new feed and call, “here chicky, chick, chick” and they follow me all the way to the coop where I toss the food in and watch them all follow. Once inside I take the loose chicken wire side I had left undone grab the stapler and fasten the wire onto the frame, fuck you girls let me get some sleep now. 6:12 I lay back down and at 6:43 hear them outside on the back deck yet refrain from bashing my head against the wall choosing instead to see what mischief their up to. I open the door just as Miss Money Penny and Anna Bean pull down one of the replanted apple trees thinking how in the hell did you get out? Like a cattle herder on my way to the big round up I wander back and forth cutting off escape route and tempting them with more food and finally get them back in the coop to find they had pulled the wire up from the bottom to get out.

8:10am I finish from staking the wire into the ground and head back inside to get ready for work and on my way into the house finds on one of the apple tree pots white gold! Yes finally they have laid not one, but two eggs. Granted given a small egg in the grocery store looks like a large next to these the goal has finally been reached I have eggs. The rest as I have learned from all the chicken folks I talked to must be hidden around the property as Bantams are famous for hiding their eggs making each day you wish to free range them like a Easter eggs hunt yet with mine now safely secure in their coop this shouldn’t be a problem for me. I’m so proud of my girls having given me two eggs that have only cost me $300 an egg I promptly call my daughter and give them to her to eat figuring there will be more where they came from.

It’s now 9:02pm and I’ve gone to work and came home at 8:12 to find the ladies excavating the ground like a team of World War II American soldiers in a German Prison camp digging on the far back side of the coop next to the shed. With a bit effort they might have with the additional work been able to get out again but a few big rocks and a stout 2X6 I’ve thwarted the next great escape and am still at present the commander in chief of this crazy little farm. Until something interesting happens next I expect eggs tomorrow when I get up at 7am for once. Will keep you all posted, for now were out and they’re in. Oh did I mention for the past three days I’ve also been dealing with the flu? Life sure does throw you some curves sometimes, especially when you add chickens to the mix.

Day 6

Blissful sleep until 7:30am, drank a half a bottle of Nyquil and kicked the flu to the curb, of course I woke up with the proverbial Nyquil hangover but the flu was gone and after a couple of cups of Joe I felt back to my old self once more. 8am I popped outside to check on the girls and saw they made it through their first night in their new coop with flying colors. In fact I think they liked it so much since they didn’t even get wet during the brief rain we had I found they had left me three eggs in one of the cages, I almost wept.

Went to work and wondered all day if they’d get out but when I arrived home at 6:23pm I saw Miss Money Penny frantically digging away once more in the corner of the coop. Walking over I saw everything was fine she could dig to China before she ever moved the small boulder I put in the place of her most recent excavation attempt.

Went to the shed and got out the food filled the feeder tray and changed the water so it was fresh as well and while putting the feed and water back in the cage saw Henny Penny hop up and climb out of the cage to see what was up. My dear little bird had left me two more eggs in her cage so things are looking up indeed. All total now in the past two days I have found seven eggs and the red marker is slowly moving to the black but I still have a long way to go but these were the best $100 eggs I’ve ever eaten. Will keep you all posted.