Do the chickens have large talons?

First of all, chickens. are. awesome. I LOVE having chickens.  They are such unique creatures. They all have their own personalities- more on that later- and they will eat anything! I love setting out scraps and seeing what they devour. It's fun for the kids, but honestly, I think I am the one who loves having chickens the best. They are so fun to watch. This is a great little hobby that is someday going to provide us with eggs that end up costing us about $14/dozen.  Imagine the savings!!

So, onto the savings cost. I did have a feeling this was all going to cost more than I expected, but $697 so far is a little more than I thought I would be reporting. This includes all materials for the coop, the chickens themselves, heat lamps and food. There should be some margin for error since the only reporting I have is from Quicken. I didn't see every receipt and I KNOW that some of them have yard/lawn purchases rolled in since Andy went to Home Depot. So even if we round down- and I think we should, we're looking at $600 to get started with a hobby chicken farm. Our friends all purchased their coops ready made and no one paid more than $400-$500 for theirs, so we're almost on target. But we'll never recoup (get it?) those funds no matter how many eggs we get. So know that going in- I think the coop cost is probably an investment that doesn't necessarily come back to you.

Speaking of coops- here is the coop Andy built. It's a very good coop with just a few 'we've never had chickens flaws'. My amazing husband did not even use a plan for this, he just spent hours looking at plans and modified what he saw and came up with this. I think it's a great coop, safe from predators (Lord willing!) with some nice features like added insulation and a window. The flaw- and maybe this is with all coops- is that I can't stand up in the run. I like to go in there, but I have to bend down which means I'm not spending a lot of time in there. And when you have chickens, if you don't have an automatic door closer, you are in the coop at least twice a day and that doesn't count when you want to go in and manhandle the birds. So, the height of the run is a pain. But this is a moveable coop and that is great because apparently chickens destroy the grass if you leave them forever in the same place. All in all, I think Andy did great except I think with better planning we could have done it cheaper.

Onto the chicken girls.

One by one, here they are in all their glory.

June Carter is our White Crested Polish. She looks freaking hilarious and I love her for it. She's not overly interested in us, but she loves her best friend Lisa Marie. They are always together. The other day I couldn't find them and just as I started to freak out I realized they were sleeping in the feeder. It's a tall galvanized thing that usually has a lid, but they saw an opportunity for a little private time and moved right in.
Lisa Marie is less friendly than June, but she's a pretty nice girl. She got the heat when she moved in, so I think she just knows she's at the bottom of the totem pole and that's that.
Taylor Swift, the Welsummer you can only see in the background is a total bitch. She is always the last one I can catch because she's so busy being a bitch, flying around like an eagle and crap. I love her, but I love her the least of all the chickens.
Loretta is my second favorite chicken. She's pretty friendly and very curious. She loves Avett when he's hanging onto the outside of the coop and she always goes up to him.
Dolly, though, Dolly is my girl. She's for sure the lead chicken, she put June and Lisa Marie right in their places taking special care of making sure LMP knew who was boss.  Dolly is the first one to come to me when I go in the coop. She is curious and kind. I love Dolly. She doesn't mind being held, either.

I'm glad we got a variety of breeds and I'd do that again. I'm interested to see who produces the most eggs, but when we have our dream property and my 30 chickens are free ranging, I'll for sure have more Barred Rocks and Easter Eggers.

So if you want to get some chickens- it'll cost you a little bit, but it's worth it!

The Dixie Chicks

Meet the newest members of our family: Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton & Taylor Swift!

Andy and I have wanted chickens for.ever! We finally decided that we need to just jump in with both feet and make it happen so yesterday I packed up the kids and headed to the feed store. I felt so rebellious! We never just do things spur of the moment like that without tons of planning, price comparing and debating. I was nervous, but seeing the kids with the chicks today and knowing that we're doing something that equates to one of our life values and goals, I feel good about it now!

In their temporary digs where they will stay until they get a little older i.e a giant tupperware

Playtime on the newspaper. When I say playtime, I mean for Vaughn & Eloise, not the chicks.

Taylor is our favorite. Probably because she is the smallest and easiest to handle, but she does have the cutest markings, too.

I'll tell you about our little chicks as time goes on, but something I really want to capture here is the true cost of backyard chickens. I made some educated guesses on the cost, but I wanted to document for me (& you, if you are interested) what exactly it costs to start this little hobby.

Today we bought three chicks, a 7lb bag of food, a heat bulb, a big bag of wood chips, a heat lamp  and a food and waterer. We spent a total of: $56.37. We are still getting two more rare chicks in a few weeks and I don't know what they will cost us. As I alluded to above, unlike most of our ventures into something new, we actually didn't price compare any of our supplies. The place where we wanted to get our chickens from had only a few left and we were going to go this weekend- which would have given us time to buy stuff off Amazon, but since they were running out, we just went and got everything. We probably could have just saved a few bucks on these things by price comparing. We had our Tupperware on hand, so we didn't need one of those, but if you were getting into this and didn't have someplace to keep your chicks, you would need to factor that cost as well.

Obviously, we still need a coop complete with nesting boxes, a roost, a run and safety from predators. So that will be another cost (my guess $300?- Andy is building the coop, so we'll salvage as many materials as possible, but there will always be something....). But for now we have the enjoyment of these three little ladies and what we need to take care of them for the next couple of moths.

Here's the next two chicks we are getting- I think they are the most lovely of all our chickens, but Andy already dubbed the Polish the Lady Gaga of chickens.

Columbian Wyandotte: Lisa Marie Presley

White Crested Black Polish: June Carter Cash

I hope I don't end up saying, "what have we done?". I may though, when Wilson eats the chickens, which he is desperate to do....