# What gave you inspiration to want to raise chickens?



## earlyKbyrd (Aug 29, 2012)

Everyone has a story behind their chicken farm, what's yours?


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## rob (Jun 20, 2012)

i started growing my own veg and raising chickens seemed the next step. plus i have always liked chickens and ducks.


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## annlouise (Jul 29, 2012)

like rob i started growing veg. i think at the time there was a lot of media attention on welfare standards and i vowed never to eat a shop bought egg again. so we got our first 2 hens and have enjoyed their daily gifts ever since


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## earlyKbyrd (Aug 29, 2012)

That's awesome , we felt the same way about raising chickens and growing our own food many people have forgotten how to live off of the land and have relied too much on companies providing there own food for them , I'm still working on the veggies though , I just don't have that lucky "green thumb" effect :/


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

I'm thinking about taking a master gardener course through the local university. (Rutgers). I would love to start a small green farm like they talk about in Ominvores Dilema. Chickens following the cows from pasture to pasture. Fresh eggs. Animals living the best lives they can naturally with humans orchestrating it all. My Vet background is in place, now I need the plants and I'll be all set! We all have dreams, don't we?


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## purplepear (Jun 29, 2012)

For me some inspiration came after reading the Permaculture Home Garden by Linda Woodrow. Keeping chickens makes so much sense as they give and give to a food system. The hens we have willingly control insects in the garden as well as fertilizing and cultivating the soil - and they give us eggs too. (at least the younger ones do).
@ energyvet, do you need a masters class from uni to grow food? just get started and it will happen. Follow the chooks around and they will do the work and you just plant.


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## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

A friend of my hubby's wanted to give us a couple baby ducks. We waited apprehensive not knowing what to expect. Well a rotten pine martin managed to get into their duck couple and killed their ducks. =( We were disappointed. Then comes the Spring chickies at Tractor Supply. We looked and watched and wondered ... until it was too late. Couldn't get them from there anymore. Started making phone calls like a mad woman. Finally found a nearby feed mill had a good dozen breeds of chickens to choose from that you could order as day old up to 6 months old. Ran to the computer to research the choices we had. Decided on 3 RIR & 3 Barred Rock. After a week long wait for our day old chicks, I rushed to pick them up right after work. It was love at first sight! Even my rat terrier Izzabelle loved them. Couldn't keep either one of us away from them for long. After almost a year, we did lose Sweetpea, RIR. Heart broke, 2 weeks later, hubby took me to a fur & feather swap a 1/2 hour away. I grudgingly chose a month old Australorp, Lilah. She was my shadow. Still is. However, getting the older hens to accept her was a huge feat! Finally got her a buddy at the last swap for the year last Sept. Brought home a 4 1/2 month old Australorp/Leghorn mix. By November I managed to get Lilah & Alyviah in the big girl coop for all night AND day. This past July I brought home a final addition - my 1st Ameruacana. Love her to pieces too. We will have all 8 girls until they die of old age. They are so much company and just a delight to be around. The girls bring a peace to my life that has always been missing. I hope they are here with me for a very very very long time.


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

Me too. I want all my pets to last forever. 

I grow food but I could be so much better at it. I'm learning but way too slowly. I'm inefficient, wasteful and clueless sometimes. A course would do me good. Besides of I want to farm as s business and need credentials for bank funding, I will need the master gardener credentials.


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## cindy (Jun 29, 2012)

I like being self sufficient so having my own fresh eggs go's hand in hand with growing my own vegi's and fruits then canning 
all the extra produce and making wine out of the fruit which ends up costing less then a dollar a bottle for some very fine homemade wine.
I also make beer and bake my own breads. the key to growing a vegi garden is to spend a buck on the soil and a nickle on the plants lol
my ladies do their share in making my gardens grow!


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## oakwood (Aug 21, 2012)

We come from generations of poultry keepers and game keepers .
Everyone keeps livestock of some sort in our families.


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## UncleJoe (Jun 23, 2012)

The general state of the economy gave us the inspiration to create a buffer zone between us and the normal food chain. After the large garden, chickens seemed to be the next logical step. That was 5 years ago and we haven't looked back.


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## Chickenboy (Sep 7, 2012)

I grew up in a family where livestock was normal just like a dog and had my first chicken before I could crawl that was 13 and 1/2 years ago and I had my first **** at like 3 and my first guinea at 5 and my first goat at 10 I think maybe 8!!!!!


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## Roslyn (Jun 21, 2012)

I grew up in the country, raised primarily by my Depression Era Grandmother who taught me to live for today but prepare for tomorrow. We made due and did things for ourselves. We didn't buy, we created. I never thought of crafting etc as an art form, but I do now.

What seems like a lifetime later my husband and I had a tiny little apartment on the edge of town. Our neighbor had a garden, an obnoxious little dog and a funny rabbit hutch on stilts. However there were little bantam chickens in the hutch. Every morning they would come down the ramp and busy themselves in the grass and gardens. I would lay in bed and watch the chickens out the window. They were really cool. My Grandmother was an avid bird watcher and we had a stool next to a window facing the feeders so you could watch the birds. It's just something I love doing, and it still connects me to my Grandmother.

So, fast forward many more years and my husband and I and now two children are living in Lancaster County Pa in town. We both would have loved to have a country property, but country/farm property in Lancaster is worth its weight in Gold!! About 6 weeks after 9/11 I was standing in the market early in the morning and it just hit me, what if something even bigger than the Twin Towers happened in this country? What if things that travel half way around the world couldn't get here? How on Earth would I feed my family?? I now consider that moment my awakening moment. My Great Epiphany. 

It took a year, but my husband and I came back to the land to be self sufficient. I have stayed on coarse, but he has drifted back to being an Electricity Loving Guy, but two of my goals was to learn every single skill I could fit into my head, and to keep chickens. We moved in late summer and that Spring we had our first 10 chickens. 9 mixed hens and a rooster. We built that first coop to my design and recycled materials and started learning. I never knew anyone with chickens, I never had chickens, but I learned a LOT about chickens.


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

Roslyn you are a gift to us all. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad to know you.


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## Roslyn (Jun 21, 2012)

Energyvet said:


> Roslyn you are a gift to us all. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad to know you.


Why Thank You, I'm really touched. Most people just think I'm nuts.

I do think that the World can be saved by chickens and ice cream.

Keeping chickens helps to connect us with Mother Earth, reminds us of Her Rules and Connections, and if you just sit down and eat ice cream then you will only know happiness and can never think evil of others.

At the end of the day, Life is very simple.


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## TinyHouse (Aug 31, 2012)

Roslyn said:


> Why Thank You, I'm really touched. Most people just think I'm nuts.


I think you are FAR from nuts. And I definitely "identify" with you - most of the people I used to work with (and a lot who still talk to me) think I am nuts too. 



Roslyn said:


> I do think that the World can be saved by chickens and ice cream.


OMG yes! I think you've hit it on the head - there's simply not enough chickens and ice cream being enjoyed.



Roslyn said:


> Keeping chickens helps to connect us with Mother Earth, reminds us of Her Rules and Connections, and if you just sit down and eat ice cream then you will only know happiness and can never think evil of others.


And that's why my plan is to have chickens and goats. Then I will have plenty of work, entertainment and ICE CREAM!



Roslyn said:


> At the end of the day, Life is very simple.


Yes, yes it is.


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

I wuv you guys! Can we buy a big house/ farm and all live there? Please.


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## TinyHouse (Aug 31, 2012)

Actually, I was hoping, eventually, to build a number of small little "houses" on my place for guests, WWOOFers, weekenders, family, friends...... 

Places like: a treehouse, a hobbit house, a log cabin, a teepee, a yurt, etc. 

You'd all be welcome!


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## earlyt89 (Aug 2, 2012)

We should all chip in and buy a couple hundred acres in the middle of nowhere. So we won't be bothered. Come up with our own races of chickens. All kinds of animals. Our own society. And we can grow our own plants and use the poop for fertilizer. Just become Amish or something like that. I vote for our own nation. Cogburn for President. EnergyVet for vice president.


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

Be careful what you wish for. ;-)


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## UncleJoe (Jun 23, 2012)

Roslyn said:


> I do think that the World can be saved by chickens and ice cream.[QUOTE/]
> 
> I'd add some chocolate to that.


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## cogburn (Jul 16, 2012)

Ya know.. This country as a whole needs to look into that exact lifestyle.. I already am pretty much planning for that to happen in the not so distant future, we have to take care of ourselves y'all, because "our" government is sure not worried about us, spend spend spend... Like there's no tomorrow, what's it gonna be like in 10 years? I'm takin care of me and mine, and anyone else who wants to pull their own weight can come along, and live off the land. that's what god intended for us to do with it. I'm not a nut, but I see the writing on the wall, and I think there's a lot more people opening their eyes to it now, than there was 10 years ago.


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## Roslyn (Jun 21, 2012)

Wow guys......Are we all talking about .......a commune!!!??? 


That means that we are ALL hippies!!!

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh

Actually, I had an Uncle who raised his family in a modern commune. My Mum and I visited when I was 15. 

No one prepared me for the Nudists living in the basement.


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## earlyt89 (Aug 2, 2012)

If I was a millionaire I would have my family and friends on one piece of property. Maybe just seperated houses or one giant mansion. But I would want us to be self sufficient. Pigs, cows, chickens, horses, the whole deal.


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## Willy (Sep 14, 2012)

I grew up on a farm with chickens running around loose. This time around the chickens were my wife's idea. The guineas and turkeys were mine.


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## Roslyn (Jun 21, 2012)

Chickens are such fascinating creatures. Most people think of them as stupid, stinky poop makers, but they have a very intricate hierarchy and there are a LOT of rules to being a chicken.

If you watch them moving through taller grass you can envision a group of Velociraptors moving through the plains, they have a very reptile way about them. Then they have a bird like behavior. I also think they are becoming more popular just because people are more interested in the small homestead idea. Even goats and sheep are hard to handle for someone with no animal husbandry knowledge or skills. Pigs can and do attack people (I was attacked as a young teen by a pig), and cows are huge. All livestock can be very overwhelming to people starting out.

Chickens are small and easy to keep. Keeping predators OUT is the hardest thing to do. They are the easiest animal to learn how to "harvest" in my opinion and can easily be pets or livestock. If you are willing to work within their needs they will work for you. They can strip an area of sod and fertilize at the same time, they can keep and turn your compost for you. Toss grass clippings in a pile under fruit trees and they will make it their habit to routinely visit the trees and dig up bugs and such from around the trees, keeping the grass neat and getting rid of any bad insects as well. Free ranging they can keep your yard free of ticks while aerating the lawn and fertilizing and keeping it healthy. I have always had a lovely, lush green lawn!!

And, they are just SO cool.


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

Good answer, Roslyn.


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## 7chicks (Jun 29, 2012)

I'm with Energetvet. Well said Roslyn! When people meet me and find out I have "pet" chickens, they always want to know more. Getting a different view point of chickens is fascinating to them. Chickens are so much more intelligent than people realize until they have them.


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

My chicken was so much better than this parrot I have. I think that's why psitticines irritate me so much. They're just not chickens. Never knew that about myself before today but that's the crux of it. Now what to do with the parrot......


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## anderson8505 (Jul 3, 2012)

My decision to get chickens came from memories of my grandparents' farm in MN. A friend at work mentioned her husband's chickens and coop, next thing you know I'm having him build me a coop. On my birthday I bought 11 chicks from the feed store. Now I have owned many breeds of varying ages, lost some, sold some, and learned a lot in the past 18 months!!! I currently have 45 chickens.


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## anderson8505 (Jul 3, 2012)

Energyvet said:


> My chicken was so much better than this parrot I have. I think that's why psitticines irritate me so much. They're just not chickens. Never knew that about myself before today but that's the crux of it. Now what to do with the parrot......


Yup, never cared much for parrot-y birds!


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## kiwicsi (Sep 24, 2012)

I've been motivated by watching River Cottage (BBC lifestyle programme). And been really convicted by the cruelty of factory farming. Decided "that's it, want my own chickens" so went ahead and got the coop, did the research, joined this commune,oops community.


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## fuzziebutt (Aug 7, 2012)

Hubby sent me to KFC for a 3 piece meal, and I have a really wicked sense of humor...

He had always said how he loved the look of a Bantam rooster walking around in the yard when he was growing up, so I went to the co-op before I went to KFC, and got 3 4 day old bantam chicks. We (I) raised them in a cardboard box under the porch light as a brooder box, until they got big enough to put them in a coop we built. We bought some silkies, and some bantam mutts, and that was it!! But hubby is really specific now when he wants food from KFC. No sense of humor!!


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## Energyvet (Jul 25, 2012)

I love you Fuzz. You are wicked!


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## cnsper (Oct 2, 2012)

I started out because I wanted a place that was sustainable for me. Eggs from the hens and most of the roosters to freezer camp.


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