Keeping Chickens

When we bought our house last June, I was so happy because I had space to keep some chickens. I always wanted to have a large vegetable garden and some chickens, maybe a cow. Now I could start to make my dream come true. I was very lucky because someone I worked with was moving to Japan and couldn’t take her chickens!!!! I got 5 hens and 3 roosters “free”!

I had to rent a truck and drive to the Annapolis area to get the coop and fencing materials. ($105 plus gas and tolls – about $150) My husband never built a chicken pen. We paid a teen ager with the right skills about $75 to help him build the pen. They bought supplies for about another $60.

The chickens arrived a few days later by car. I got some feed with them but had to buy my own. I decided I wanted a few more hens so I could have a steady supply of eggs. I hatched 19 chicks. I did not get a special brooder which would have run much more. I made a little house out of cardboard and wood shavings for the chicks. Wood shavings began to run me quite a bit of money as the chicks grew. I went through about $10 worth a week as well as quite a bit of chick feed. I had to buy special feed and water holders. (About $25 for all of them).

Then the chicks went out into the pen with the grown ones. Next I noticed I was going through a bag of feed a week ($9.50). I now feed them scratch too and let them roam most days. I have only 25 chickens now (one died and one just disappeared – maybe a hawk got it).

In November I did a duck rescue and two of the sweetest animals installed themselves into the pen. I bought a dog house ($89) and had the teen aged boy make a door. He also enlarged the pen ($60 for him and $120 for supplies).

Now let’s tally up the balance sheet on the plus side. Eggs! Yes, I do get some (about 3 every 2 days). It is winter and chickens don’t lay many eggs in winter. Come Spring I will have many more and I will also send the roosters to be butchered. There are about 14 roosters and I will leave only 2. Since I have bantams we will need 2 roosters for every family dinner. That is 6 dinners plus leftovers. I hope to sell the eggs when the hens go into spring time production. Maybe $1 a dozen since they are small and 3 bantam eggs equal two regular sized eggs.

My nephew is bringing by 8 hens today because they were living in someone’s living room in Newark (EWWW!!!). Animal control gave them a week to get rid of them. Welcome hens! I am hoping no one else gets my phone number and asks me to rescue their poultry!!!

I decided that keeping a few chickens can be a very expensive hobby!