I Need Advice - As in what would you do? yes, chicken related...lol...

[Quail_Antwerp]

I think if anyone on here knows anything about me, it's I'm addicted to my chickens and I really do enjoy having them.

I need to make a list of pros and cons - reasons to keep or not to keep poultry. Seriously.

The deal is this - we're going to have regular income. Enough income, that we could occassionally take a vacation, or a weekend trip, etc.

Which also means, there's income to buy chicken feed and not have to worry about the chickens covering their own costs (though I would still HOPE they would do this!)

We are going to rehome the geese. We are also re-homing the mallards, since as of this morning we only have 1 pair after the kids' school bus wiped out the other male and 3 females. We didn't even know the ducks were on the road.

We've had a huge loss in poultry this year, due to wild predators, neighbors dogs, our own dog recently, and today, the school bus. I honestly have come to the point of realizing freerange is not an option for us unless we can completely fence in the whole place. We are just too close to the road, as we've had other birds hit by cars. It's too expensive of a hobby to lose poultry to drive bys. Our neighbors this morning told us they saw what happened and they think the bus driver hit them on purpose, as every single duck was in the grass of the edge of the road, not in the road.

Anyhoo...

This is going to sound crazy, but now that we are going to have regular income, and I won't technically "need" to raise birds to sell, or eggs, chicks, etc...and due to lots of losses this year...I'm trying to decide do I want to keep with it? or take time off from raising poultry??

Right now, I have the original chicken barn with the add on that I will have to tear down due to part of it is rotting off plus a windstorm just took the roof off.

I just got a small flock of Mille Fleurs and 3 pairs of Sumatras. Plus I have JJ, a cochin banty hen, 3 BLRW, and now 1 blue maran. There is a columbian Wyandotte hen and a Coro Split Roo going to my mom. My BLRW are my favorites, and I actually hoped to add a few more of Foley's birds in there.

E says if I don't have a gazzillion birds, if it's a small flock, even of various breeds, then he doesn't see where feeding them would be an issue. We just don't want to be spending a ton of our income on feed.

After everyone I've got leaving goes, I'll have 21 chickens and a pair of muscovy.

I guess what I'm trying to decide is this: should I keep my poultry, since they could now truly be a hobby and not work? or just do away with everything so if we take a trip I don't have to worry about having someone come feed/water???

here's my pros:
I enjoy it
fresh eggs when they are laying
income to buy feed when it's needed
income to repair coops/buy better fencing when needed
have a small customer base and repeat customers for hatching eggs/chicks/started pullets

cons:
can't just up and go somewhere
sitting at a huge loss right now
have to do extensive repairs to existing pens due to weather damage
have no rooster for BLRW, biggest $ makers in my poultry, for spring breeding
will be feeding at a finacial loss all winter between feed expense / coop repairs

Due to how this year went, I am looking at a 1 year set back before I have the BLRW back to paying for themselves. Sumatras and Mille Fleurs SHOULD be laying come spring, but they are all young right now (except 1 pair of Sumatras) - so most likely will not have eggs from them before spring.

Any other pros and cons??

 

[Wifezilla]

Well, a full time income is nice, but how secure is that? There is so much uncertainty about the economy and the future, I can't see NOT having a way to grow my own meat and eggs. In my case, I am two over limit on duck hens and my drake is a butthead. I would rather not feed extra animals over winter, but... if things get bad, that butthead drake will be worth his weight in gold and those extra eggs will sure come in handy!!

I don't think you have to have 21 chickens, but enough to give your family eggs and make more chickens if need be might not be a bad idea. If you are thinking about whatmbirds to keep, I would pick a dual purpose breed that can go broody.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

I would scale way back, and spend the winter getting the coop and a good run taken care of.
Line the inside with linoleum to prevent rot, and make sure the roof overhangs plenty.

With a small flock that is well penned, you really can go away for 2-3 days.
You would only need someone to peek in once per day to make sure food and water is still full, and gather eggs if they are laying.

In low laying times we can leave for a couple days without a caretaker. We just fill enough waterers and leave lots of food for them.

Since we are milking a goat now, we intend to take her with us on short trips in the back of the truck.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I'd say, that since you love having chickens, you should keep some. At least as many as you need to keep your family in eggs. We have a small enclosure for ours that they stay in al summer. We let ours roam in the winter, but our property is totally fenced in. We don't get snow in winter either.
You also have a new baby and I am sure that takes up a lot of your time too. Give yourself a break for the winter and you can get going again in the spring.

I decided that I am going to "try" and only get meaties for a while. I did manage to only buy 3 new layers this year

 

[FarmerChick]

Nothing wrong at all with scaling back Aly.

I was into 'breeding and raising' chicks on the farm WAY in the beginning and real fast I did not like dealing with customers just to sell a stupid bird.....they always balked at the price. Come on people...haha....I had alot of time and energy into raising that chicken LOL....and truly I was sick of having to meet people at the barn 'just to buy one chicken!' and I would have like 50 in their enclosure and they would point to ONE CHICKEN and say I want that one HA HA HA...yea right!


I then decided straight eggs and that was it for sale. No more 'chicken breeding or selling' or anything like that so I truly narrowed down my workload.



Get some for YOU. Just for YOU. and fresh eggs.

And yup, a few good waterers and food and you can leave a pen of chickens for a long weekend...absolutely. As long as you give them enough, heck I have left my goats for a few days with loaded water and pasture...with MIL giving them a peak once a day.



You got alot on your hands. There is nothing wrong wtih re-evaluating how you want your little bit of heaven to proceed. You make the call that fits the life you want! Best ya can do LOL

 

[savingdogs]

My goal has been to scale back every fall, kind of clean house before I figure out who I need to over-winter.

This year a predator made some decisions for me unfortunately. But maybe you just need a smaller group. Maybe get rid of some non-productive ones and instead get that roo you need and of the breed you enjoy the most.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I don't think you have to have 21 chickens, but enough to give your family eggs and make more chickens if need be might not be a bad idea. If you are thinking about whatmbirds to keep, I would pick a dual purpose breed that can go broody.

This is the idea, because I'd really like to have the girls hatch as much as possible for me, reducing the amount of time I have to mess with an incubator.

The BLRW are a dual purpose, and two of the 3 hens I have are proven broodies. The last few times setting up at Mt. Hope, I've been the only one that we've seen selling these, and I sell out every time. Usually don't have enough chicks when I'm setting up.

The Sumatras aren't the best layers, but when they do lay they are like silkies and go broody at the drop of the hat. The pair Becca just got for me at Mt. Hope, the hen has been used to hatch everything from her own eggs to turkeys to peafowl, so she alone was worth the purchase. They are also my second favorite breed, but I've only sold started pairs from them - and did really well with it. I currently have 3 pairs, with an extra roo.

Mille Fleurs - a really popular breed in our area, and I've never had trouble selling their eggs or chicks, and the hens tend to go broody if given the chance. Popular with 4H kids in my area for showing. I really do have too many roos in this breed right now, with a 6/5 ratio. 6 roos to 5 girls. I'd like to get the roos down to the 3 best.

I only want to keep extra roos because we've had isssues this year with losing roos for the breeds we're working with.

The BLRW and Sumatras would be my choices to keep just for myself, even if I have no intentions of breeding.
All of the Milles were just acquired, and one pair is definitely has show potential. The only Sumatra original to our farm is JJ, the other 3 pairs were just added within the last week, too.

Give yourself a break for the winter and you can get going again in the spring.

I like this idea, too, but E has said if I sell everything, and keep nothing, then we're ripping out all of the pens and turning the area back into yard and not putting the expense into rebuilding my flocks. So the loophole to this is I have to keep at least 1 chicken


I'm hoping the geese will be gone this Friday. I have no intentions of adding any other livestock/animals to the farm until spring, unless E finds a good bull for Blessing.

 

[FarmerChick]

but ya know Aly that a backyard can be tons of fun. Backyard cookouts etc. Great kid area to play. A nice backyard is a great extention to a home. Nothing wrong with that LOL

shove those few chickens you keep farther back in the property line lol

 

[lorihadams]

We did one big pen for all the chickens but we don't have any roos at all. We are trying to decide what breeds to get in the fall to get some color in the barnyard. I scaled back my runners a lot. I decided to keep one male and 3 female cause I have 2 hens that I know will probably go broody and hatch out ducklings for me. It is easier for us to buy a few chicks for layers than it is to keep a roo and deal with the potential aggression issues. We did an enclosure that is 80x100 or something like that. We only used the standard garden fencing with 6ft round posts driven 1 1/2-2 ft in the ground. We clip wings to keep them from flying over. They have so much grass that they can scratch around and still not tear it up. In the few patchy places we get a bag of clover seeds and reseed it with clover as needed. They share the run with the ducks. We are down to 11 birds total for the winter, 7 mixed hens and 4 indian runners. The fencing was probably $300...it took 2 rolls of fencing and a ridiculous amount of fence posts set every 10-12 ft or so. It is 3 or 4 ft tall, I forget.

If you got down to one or two breeds....like the BLRW and the sumatras and just did two big runs with two small coops then you would be set. There are cheap alternatives to building some coops and if you only had to do two small flocks then you could make one big coop with a divider that went out into one big divided run for each breed. Get rid of the other damaged coops, build a small chicken tractor to use as an isolation pen or chick grow out pen or breeding pen or whatever. We built our tractor for around $100 and have used it so much that it has been worth every penny. We made it big enough that we have even put the dogs in it temporarily when we needed to keep them around while we were working outside and the weather was nice.

I think if you get down to the 2 breeds then it would be worth it to build a new coop for the both of them and keep your numbers small. You could totally do a long weekend if you had someone to check in on them every day or two. I think the main thing is that you need to work on getting everything predator proof, even if it means keeping them in a run permanently.

 

[valmom]

I can't imagine not having our hobby chickens! We have now, 6 ancient hens and 6 adolescents in a chicken fortress to keep away predators. The eggs alone make it worthwhile for us! I hate store bought eggs now As for going away, we have horses too that need babysitting, so chickens aren't a big deal to add to the pile. Not that we go away much at all. Ever. Even for a weekend... :/

I'd say, keep them if you like the eggs and watching them and watching them raise chicks now that there is income to support them more. Winter feed for ours really doesn't cost all that much. Well, compared to horses it doesn't.