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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
anyone have chickens?
I keep toying with the idea of getting a couple to keep for eggs and as pest control (to eat the bugs). Can you give me some info on what the egg yield is, how much feed you have to buy for them to eat, size/design of the coop, and anything else you might think would be good to know?
We have a few local people near us that sell eggs, but I was thinking it would just be more convenient to have a couple (maybe 2 or 3 max) for ourselves so I knew how they were raised and treated and then I could give eggs to the neighbors and family as well.
TIA!
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Re: anyone have chickens?
Duke's House: Eating and Running with the Big Dog in Chennai: eatrunbrit.com
2010 Race PRs:
5K - 24:57 10M - 1:28:20 13.1M - 1:57:29 26.2M - 4:28:29
AnKa on Money Matters has them, but I think she has more like 10.
Mother Earth News has great chicken resources.
Check your bylaws; it's illegal for me to keep them in the city. I may someday fight city hall over that.
ha ha, yeah I live in rural town USA - there's a corn field across the street from me and behind me is a farm that has goats, sheep, and cows. No worries about bylaws here.
Thanks for the info though!
The usual egg yield is every 36 hours in the summer and about 48+ hours in the winter. I got my chickens in late March last year and got the first egg in August. It took about a month before they were laying regularly. Before they begin laying you have to buy the chick feed and after that the lay feed, a 50lb bag should be under $10. We got lucky, when we bought our house it came with a very large chicken coop. It is a shed (20x10) that has the inside split in half between storage and coop, the yard is 20 x 20. I think we could have as many as 20 chickens. They like to lay eggs in boxes that are above the ground and sit on their perch to sleep.
We have 3 chickens right now (started with 6, 1 rooster and 2 escaped). They go through 1 bag a feed and scratch every 2 months, plus they eat all of our scraps. With 3 chickens you should have enough eggs in the summer for yourself and to give away, the winter will be very sparce. The chickens should live between 5-10 years with the first 4 years being their most productive.You might want to stagger them (get 2 every couple years)
Make sure to research all the breeds to find the friendly productive ones (and of course the color of their eggs!)
we do!
we have four... we're getting about a dozen a week currently - - we got way fewer during the winter, and will probably get more this summer.
you don't need as much space as you'd think, even for really happy chickens... there are tons of resources online, but I particularly like:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/
I am the 99%.
I 2nd Backyard Chicken. Its a great resource. They also make really cute pets.