A day in the life of a chicken

I had been trying to convince my husband for three springs to let me get chickens, and finally this spring, he agreed I could get them.  I think Steve felt sorry for me the day I can home after meeting Shelly and Mary Beth for lunch and they shared their backyard chicken coop set ups with me.  I was very excited to have found some Chicks in the Hood that shared my interested in chickens.

I bought 1 Barred Rock Rooster, 3 Barred Rock Hens, 3 Aracauna Hens from Lambert's Tack & Feed in Butler.  Picked up the approx 6 week old chicks after we came home from our African vacation in mid-May 2008.  Did not see any chickens in Africa.  In the City, we are allowed to have 5 chickens, but I figured as a novice, that I might lose a chick our two so I ended up with 2 illegal chickens.  All of the crime in the city, and I was certain that I would get busted for two illegal chickens!

Steve agreed that I could get the chickens as long as he and I built the coop.  I had been collecting coop plans for several years, but all of the plans were beyond our abilities.  And while we debated coop designs, the chicks were on the sunporch getting bigger and bigger each day.  I had purchased a Brooder Starter Set from Murray McMurray Hatchery www.mcmurrayhatchery.com which included a heat lamp, thermometer, chick-friendly feeder and waters, and some corregated cardboard.  I created a round pen for the chicks and fed them chick start also from Murray McMurray and they thrived and grew at an alarming rate! 

Finally, Steve and I were forced to admit that we didn't have the skills or experience to build a chicken coop, but we found a very nice dog house at Lowe's that with some retrofitting just might work.  After almost divorcing during the building of the dog house from a kit - how or why we thought we could build a chicken coop from plans is beyond me! - we moved the dog house chicken coop to the Farm area of our property.

Built a run area for them out of wire compost bins and chicken wire and move the girls - and 2 boys! - out to the chicken coop.  Yes, one of my Barred Rock hens, turned out to be a rooster.  So I ended up with 2 Barred Rock Roosters, 2 Barred Rock Hens and 3 Aracauna Hens!  That meant that I was faced with a dilemna, what to do about two roosters, b/c all of my research told me that two roosters would not peacefully coexist!

Would one of the roosters become soup or Sunday dinner!