Have you ever thought about having Chickens? I have multiple times and have always wondered what it would be like having them at my home. These past few weekends my next door neighbor has come over and we have discussed partnering to raise a bunch of chickens. Not knowing what goes into this venture, we have been doing some research.
Now lets start with I thought this would be a simple task and it would be simple to decide the course of passage, but I was clearly wrong. Not in a bad way at all, but in the fact that there are so many ways you can implement chickens around the household. Did we want a very crude or elaborate chicken coop? Did we want it on wheels to move around so the chickens would help with nurturing the lawn? What kind of chickens? How many, considering that this would be two families splitting the eggs.
Now looking into the types of chickens first we had to establish which ones would be great egg layers. Second, from the mind of a chef, which ones are also good for meat? Third where are we going to source our chickens from?
Looking at this list of questions we decided to look at number three being that it would take a few weeks before we could leave the chicken in the chicken coup. After researching, my better half, Veronica, found a farm near where we live that hatch to order. This was an awesome find, being that we could know the day they were hatched and that it was local. The place we found is Southern States Turf , and they had the 4 breeds of chickens we wanted.
The breed I wanted the most was a Rhode Island Red, being they are great for eggs and eating. They also had the Araucanas Chicken or people also call it the Easter Egg Chicken. They are known for laying colored eggs. Now how cool is that! The other two that we wanted were dual purpose birds as well, both being good for meat and their eggs, the Speckled Sussex and Cuckoo Muran. We also choose these breeds for their brown eggs they lay.
The next step was finding a chicken coop design we liked. Through all the looking and pondering we are still deciding which one to go for. We do know that we will have a stationary chicken coop that will attach to the neighbors yard. Currently, I am waiting to meet with a young man, Jonathan, who builds them to match our house at a great price, comparable to me building it myself. Once again, this is supporting another local business.
Throughout this process I am hoping to learn a lot and not loose any chickens to wildlife. Our goal with this is to try and understand the process of chickens and how they help a farm on a small scale. I will be logging progress here on the blog for anyone who is wondering if this is difficult or curious about the process to raise chickens in the comfort of your own home. Now until the next day off ………..
Grow it. . . Cook it. . . Eat it. . . Another Chef's Day Off 