Late last winter my husband and I decided to get chickens. His parents had them when he was younger and he was really into the idea of having fresh eggs. At first I was totally against the idea, I thought it would be a ton of work and that the coup would smell. But after I did a little research I started to come around. The idea of fresh eggs ultimately is what persuaded me, I had never had one before our chickens started laying, and I have to say they are totally worth it. The yolks are this bright sunny orange, not the pale dull yellow you get with store bought eggs. They are also really firm, for instance if you're cooking a sunny side up egg and you pierce the yolk it doesn't run all over the place you really have to work to make it go anywhere. We make eggs all the time now, omlets, egg sandwich's, scrambled, over easy, you name it and we've been making it. I was never a big egg eater before this but the fresh eggs are absolutely delicious. I also love the fact that we know the chickens are healthy and chemical free. A couple of months ago we had to buy a dozen store eggs, I think it was around Christmas and because I was doing a lot of baking I needed more than our chickens were laying. Well, every single egg we cracked in that dozen had a double yoke. Why I have no idea, but it definitely creeped me out a little bit.
The other aspect that brought me around was the variety of eggs that you can get. We got 9 chickens (we're down to 7 now b/c 2 turned out to be roosters and the town doesn't allow you to have roosters in a residential neighborhood) and we get brown eggs, pink eggs, and blue eggs. The blue are my favorite, they come in different shades of a beautiful antique blue/green that I really love. I have saved my favorite shells for paint color swatches for our front door. We get about 4 eggs a day so we have plenty for ourselves and some to give away.
The chickens, although not really pets, do have some personality. They are funny to watch. They run and jump and flutter through the air. They are not graceful in any way but they are pretty animals. I love to see them laying in piles in the sun. In the warm weather they will all come out of their coup and rummage around in the dirt pecking at whatever they may find until they all collapse in a heap to bask in the summer sun for a while.
As it turns out they really are not all that much work to take care of. I go out every morning and re-fill their water and check on their food supply. We got them a heated water bowl for the winter to keep it from freezing. I fill up a bucket from the kitchen sink and lug it out for them in the morning, it's even easier in the warm weather when the hose we had set up near their coup is turned on. We gather the eggs every afternoon, wash them off, date them and put them away. I thought it was really intersting that you can keep fresh eggs out for up to a week before refrigerating them. Other than that the only real maintenance is cleaning out the coup once a week. And the big bonus is that come spring we are going to have awesome compost for our gardens! Chicken manure is really good for the soil.
So in the end I love having chickens, we are going to be getting a few more to add to our flock this spring. We also have two ducks in the group, they don't lay anymore but they are great pets. They have great personalities and are so funny when they splash around in their baby pool. Now my husband is on to pigs....
The other aspect that brought me around was the variety of eggs that you can get. We got 9 chickens (we're down to 7 now b/c 2 turned out to be roosters and the town doesn't allow you to have roosters in a residential neighborhood) and we get brown eggs, pink eggs, and blue eggs. The blue are my favorite, they come in different shades of a beautiful antique blue/green that I really love. I have saved my favorite shells for paint color swatches for our front door. We get about 4 eggs a day so we have plenty for ourselves and some to give away.
The chickens, although not really pets, do have some personality. They are funny to watch. They run and jump and flutter through the air. They are not graceful in any way but they are pretty animals. I love to see them laying in piles in the sun. In the warm weather they will all come out of their coup and rummage around in the dirt pecking at whatever they may find until they all collapse in a heap to bask in the summer sun for a while.
As it turns out they really are not all that much work to take care of. I go out every morning and re-fill their water and check on their food supply. We got them a heated water bowl for the winter to keep it from freezing. I fill up a bucket from the kitchen sink and lug it out for them in the morning, it's even easier in the warm weather when the hose we had set up near their coup is turned on. We gather the eggs every afternoon, wash them off, date them and put them away. I thought it was really intersting that you can keep fresh eggs out for up to a week before refrigerating them. Other than that the only real maintenance is cleaning out the coup once a week. And the big bonus is that come spring we are going to have awesome compost for our gardens! Chicken manure is really good for the soil.
So in the end I love having chickens, we are going to be getting a few more to add to our flock this spring. We also have two ducks in the group, they don't lay anymore but they are great pets. They have great personalities and are so funny when they splash around in their baby pool. Now my husband is on to pigs....
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