Raising Chickens

I have written about my extraordinary experience of eating pasture-fed chicken (the post is here: Really Good Chicken), and since then, have been exploring this idea of raising my own little chickadees!  Btw, thanks to my friends who shared some information with me!  It has been fun learning about this. 

The first question that I looked into, and that every interested person needs to find out is, will the city or village allow me to raise chickens? 

But alas, my village hasn't passed such ordinance...  Guess I have to either start a chicken rally where I live or move to a city that allows me to have my own chicken coup!  Although I currently will not be able to raise chickens (legally), I did learn a few things in the process, which I will share in this posting.

One has to first answer the age old problem: is it the chicken or the egg? 

Well, haha, in a different sense but it is so funny that this all-time great analogy can be used in SO many situations.

Raising chickens for meat and raising chicken for eggs are two separate decisions.  For one, meat chickens and egg chickens need separate coups.  If you want to raise chickens for meat, the time is much shorter; you would raise them for about two months (8 weeks) before the slaughter.  Also, their feed (if you are doing feed or supplement feed) is different than that of egg-laying chickens.  Meat chickens are raised to become plump and fat, otherwise you will have skinny chickens with little meat on the bone.

The egg-laying chickens have a much longer life and don't start laying eggs until 18-20 weeks.  You also don't want them to be too plump because they need to run around and stay fit, which will mean better eggs.  Healthy chickens lay on average one egg a day.  At one a day for a couple of years; you can do the math.  Wow, that is a lot of ovulation! 

Chickens are in some ways like children.  They need discipline!  It is important to feed them on the same hour everyday, once early morning and once in the evening, which is one other reason why I could not commit this moment--the early morning thing doesn't register that well with me (right now).  This is tough if you are out of town at all.  No wonder farmers can't just take a vacation when they want to!  You have to make sure the chickens are well hydrated and fed on a consistent basis; otherwise, they will start to peck at each other (same goes for children).  It is really bad when they start to peck, these wounds are usually the start of disease.

There is a lot more info out there, but for now, no chickens for me.  Maybe the future will hold a few.

Source of picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:K%C3%BCken_vor_dem_ersten_Ausflug.jpg
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken and Keeping Chickens, by Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis