A Beginners Guide to Raising Chickens

I took it into my head a few weeks ago to maybe get myself a couple chickens so that I could have a constant supply of eggs. Not that eggs are particularly expensive or anything, its just that since I have a couple acres, I thought I'd get into country life and get a couple chickens and maybe, if that went well, I'd expand into a goat or even a pig!

But, being an anal sort of person who always does her research first, yesterday, I trotted my butt on up to talk to an acquaintance who happens to have about 10 chickens.

ME: I want to raise a couple chickens, can you give me some pointers.... What kind of chickens to get, how many, what to feed them... stuff like that?

HER: You want to raise chickens? How well do you like eggs?

ME: I love eggs!

HER: Then don't raise chickens.

Hmmmm. Not exactly what I was expecting to hear.

ME: Oh, come on, how hard can it be?

HER: Its not hard at all. But you're, no offense intended, kinda finicky. Are you sure you can stand the nitty-gritty of it all. Ya gotta feed em, take care of em, gather the eggs, clean up after em and probably get pecked by em. Can you handle that?

Well, now, that sounded like a challenge to me! She obviously thinks I'm a hoity toity girl who doesn't want to get her hands dirty. But, give me a challenge and I'm up for it! I assured her that, of course, I can handle it.

So, we sat at her kitchen table as I asked questions and took notes.

Her chickens, she told me, are Rhode Island Reds, which lay a light brown egg. Having eaten eggs from her chickens, I can attest to their tastiness, and that's good enough for me.

Since a baby chicken, a peep, takes about 6 months to get big enough to lay eggs, I decided to get grown chickens to start.

Asked where I plan on keeping them, I had to confess that I hadn't thought that far ahead, but I had assumed that they just roam all over the place as I have seen chickens do. She informed me with a smirk that they roam around, but that they have a coop where they spend the night and lay their eggs.