I've had them and love them. However, getting them here is expensive. They are available at the Amish market for $3.50 a dozen or a three hour drive to my brothers where I could get them for $1 a dozen, $.75 if I bring my own carton.
I have not had them but I need to. My mom bought 3 chickens she has raised from baby chicks and they produce about 6 fresh eggs a day. They are brown. She keeps them mostly as pets but hey they give us food too!
yes they taste *different* and IMHO better, my daughter did a college paper about the difference between farm and store eggs and we had to conduct a blind taste test....her brothers were her guinea pigs to taste LOL
__________________
~ 4 Wheels Move the Body~ ~2 Wheels Move the Soul~
I don't think I've ever had them, but have heard that they are much better than store bought eggs. We are thinking about getting chickens so we can have fresh eggs too. We just aren't sure how the outside dog and the barn cats would react to them.
if you keep the chickens in the coop the cats and dogs can't really bother them. My mom's never leave the coop. It is completely fenced in with a fenced in ceiling and she has metal sheeting along the bottom so no animals can try to dig in or reach in to grab a chicken (which happened the first night she put them out there. She started out with 6 and 3 were killed the first night but since the metal sheeting went up we have had no issues.). They are fine staying in there. They have plenty of room.
My mom has a rooster that just kind of became hers as well. Her neighbor had a rooster he did not take good care of. Then they got moved to an old folks home and they just left him behind. So he came over to my mom's house and she feeds him and is building him a roost on the side of the coop. He actually protects the chickens. But my mom does not want baby chicks so she won't get him get to the chickens.
If we let the chickens out they would probably get ate by something too. There are snakes, coyotes, bears, wolves, feral dogs and cats, weasels, raccoons, bears, etc around there. Like that first night 3 got killed by something. When my mom was on vacation there was a huge storm and it blew over the chicken coop. She was like freaking out worried they were run away or dead. But they were up in the bushes near the house and came to her when she called them. They really act like pets. So it was a miracle they were okay.
I have a friend who got chickens for eggs and named them all and now they are like pets and come to their names. this morning I got an email from her that three chicks had hatched from their eggs. so she is very excited, and I guess that would answer if she is still keeping the chickens for eggs LOL
__________________
~ 4 Wheels Move the Body~ ~2 Wheels Move the Soul~
My friend built a really cool chicken coop. It is an A frame. It's on wheels so she can move around her yard and let the chickens peck and eat in different areas.
they really can be like pets. They will start making this cute cluck when they hear us coming to visit them at the coop and get all happy and come up to the door. They recognize the kids because the kids feed them special stuff like worms they dig up or their leftover food. It is really cute. Robot loves them.
It is super cute. Robot also adores the new rooster and named him "Bucky". He chases Bucky around and tries to feed him. Bucky will come right up to the glass door and peck on it if my mom does not come out and feed him soon enough for Bucky's taste. It is hilarious! The kids think it is so funny. They make the chickens salads which means they gather various types of grasses throughout the yard to feed to the chickens. They like eating grass. Then they feed them all kinds of stuff besides the fancy chicken feed-fresh fruits and veggies, worms, corn bread. They are well fed chickens so I bet the eggs taste good. I need to finally try some.
So what do you do when they stop laying eggs? It looks like they lay for two to five years from what I just googled. Do you just let them retire? If we had them and they are that friendly, I'd have a hard time with any other alternative. It is not pleasant when we send the lambs off to the sale barn or the processing place.
we have so many they are not pets, we then butcher. It would hard if we had just a few and became attached as pets. we have 100+ so not too attached, thank goodness
__________________
~ 4 Wheels Move the Body~ ~2 Wheels Move the Soul~
