Chickens, chickens, and more chickens...

Since Farmer Hope wanted to be a farmer, queue the chickens. We started hosting chickens in the original location, then my parents added their flock to ours resulting in nearly 100 chickens. Or more. But who's counting? As the chickens came they got upgraded from small 2'x4' enclosures with runs, to a MASSIVE 8' by 8' by 10' high. Totally unaware of the needs for chickens because we were young and oblivious and my boyfriend thought they needed more room...

We added roosting bars and quickly learned that they were too close to each other resulting in chickens picking feathers out of the others roosted above them on their rear ends. Could not figure out why some of the chickens were bare assed. Until we saw them doing it. Inside that Chicken Mansion they had hanging heat bulbs and 5 gallon buckets turned on their sides and bedded so they could nest and lay their eggs. You think they used them? Nope... they'd rather lay eggs in the corners of the floors or under the roosting bars and even outside in the run!

When we moved the kids wrangled them up and we put them in our horse trailer and moved them to a 12x12 box stall with a run. At some point the chicken door got left open and they ran outside. So they went from being in a run to free ranged. And the Bald Eagles had a FEAST. We lost so many chickens so fast and there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it because we couldn't catch them.

There are pros and cons to having feral- err... Free Range chickens. Pros are that your gardens stay pest free and your eggs are superior quality as they can get to just about any mineral they need and eat just about anything they want. Of course they're supplemented with feeders of laying pellets to eat as they want but you go through the feed so much slower. The cons however in my opinion outweigh the pros.

I had chicken shit EVERYWHERE. In places I would have never imagined! It was shit-central down past the house. They ate all my tender young starts in my garden causing me to replace them with bigger starts and net them off. I never knew where they were at all times, and it caused problems with my one neighbor. The others loved them, they loved watching them and they loved to see the baby chicks that would emerge from time to time with their moms.

Which leads me to the next con of having them free ranged- egg piles. I don't know how many piles of eggs we ran over with the mower that were abandoned, eggs that hatched with chicks that got swept up from the Eagles before we could get them caught, or the amount of hens missing to sit on eggs to later become a feast for the skunks and racoons. Or the missing egg piles that you find on accident as you moved something and started to immediately recognize what you did when the eggs busted and that putrid smell assaulted your nose holes... Lord have mercy on any soul who has to endure that...

The amount of predatory animals that were drawn in was another huge issue. We live trapped and relocated to date nearly 45 racoons, around a dozen opossums and quite a few feral cats in our traps. The rats getting into feed was another huge issue. Now we have barn cats that live outside and eat them and it's rather nice to not notice so many rats. Since re-cooping the chickens we have not noticed near as many predatory animals. So there's that...

Over the course of the last few years we are down to around 12 total chickens. The smart ones. They're super flighty and their survival instincts are 'ON POINT'. They can get away from danger by going under the blackberries in the pasture, running into open garage doors, or roosting in trees around the property. Slowly they started going missing again and we couldn't figure out why following a super bad winter storm and high winds. We had suspected they got disoriented and lost.

A few weeks pass by and we have no chickens, to starting to hear the roosters again. Where are they? Drove us nuts looking for them and not finding them. Until one day our Neighbor slipped and mentioned that he had locked some up in the garage next door. So with a few threatening words and promises to contact Law Enforcement the neighbor released them and they went back to being free ranged. Still not able to be caught- but at least I knew they were alive.

Eventually they jumped the neighbor across the streets fence and we knocked on her door with a giant tote and Aiden our teenage son who is 6'3'' and we caught the majority of them putting them back into their coop. To this day there are 4 rogue hens we simply can't catch. They flaunt their freedom as they run up and down the driveway and I curse under my breath and call them bastards... I have come to the conclusion we will never catch them. If we do, you will be sure to hear about it. It will be a glorious day that I can't wait to share... until then... I'm not holding my breath.

Chickens are bastards. Through and through! Each one has it's own personality and quirks. Over the years ours have gotten stupid fast, wicked smart, and through the winter they were the biggest free loaders I have ever met. In the beginning when our chicken math was terribly broken- we were getting around 8 dozen a day. I had so many eggs that I couldn't even give them away! The dogs coats were beautiful with the amount of eggs they ate, and we simply got tired of eggs.

Our youngest daughter Bristol had over 40 dozen eggs all in cartons and cleaned up with a table out in our front yard with a sign that said "Free eggs!". After that, even tho the Eagles ate well and our flock diminished- I am kind of thankful we're down to a manageable number of chickens finally. I'll gladly collect the 12 eggs a week and be happy about it. For now.