Cluck, cluck, still no goose!
Our very first livestock purchase was chickens. These are the easiest to care for if you are just starting out. We obtained 7 hens & a bantam rooster from our friend James’s cousin. Audrey & I had a great time painting the coop in the freezing weather, not! I was raised on store-bought eggs, white ones at that. I was not all that keen to eat fresh brown eggs. Now I would rather have those than the ones from the store.
After a few months of having the first batch of chickens, we purchased 25 red star hens & 25 red star roosters from an Amish store near here. The chicks were so cute! Then, they got bigger & uglier & messier. Will & Bobby (our farmhand) built a new chicken house & yard & out they went! It was funny watching the lil chickens in their huge new home. Now they are full grown & we don’t have many of them left. A few of the hens starting eating their own eggs so we built a drop box for the eggs to roll into from the roosting boxes. After they figured out they couldn’t get the eggs anymore, they hens started killing each other, which was a surprise.
If you plan to buy chickens, first thing-do not buy as many roosters as you do hens. One rooster for every 20 hens is plenty. If you have too many roosters, they start to fight. If you do not have any, the hens will still lay but one will take over as the rooster. We have red stars, but ordered 50 Golden Comets (which I was told are the best layers by the owner of the Amish store we frequent) which arrived today. We shall see how they do when they get old enough to lay. Right now I am getting between 15-20 eggs a day from our red stars.
