cluck, cluck

Facts about chickens:

A chicken is a bird. haha
There are more chickens than people in the world
A hen can live up to 20 years
They have no teeth and swallow their food whole
Chickens are very social
Chickens lay different colored eggs. white brown, green, pink and blue
A chicken's heart beats 280-315 beats a minute
You don't have to have a rooster for a hen to lay eggs
It takes 24-26 hours to lay an eggA chicken takes 21 days to hatch
You don't have to have a big yard to have a couple chickens
You can live in the city and have hens (certain cities don't have ordinances to have them but ours does)
Chickens have got to be the easiest, most forgiving, creature to manage
A hen is called a pullet until it is a year old
Hens start to lay eggs at about six months
A chicken can lay more than 600 eggs in her first two years
Eggshells have a natural outer coating that keeps bacteria out.
Chicken droppings supply many of the nutrition needed for gardens.
Chickens will eat all the bugs in your yard and even trim your grass


After talking to a co-worker about raising chickens he had me convinced that it was a great idea to have chickens even in a small yard. I have always enjoyed fresh eggs from my uncle and from the farmers markets so why not give it a try. It is getting more and more common for people in the city to have chickens. I never thought it was even an option in the city. I went to IFA just to look at information and thinking we could plan for chickens maybe in the spring sometime, (not knowing if I really wanted to or not). I looked on the board at IFA and saw my uncle Kimball advertising chickens for sale. I called him and he told us to come get four. Zac put together a nice pen in the back corner of our yard. The kids love them and have wanted to hold them every minute. It will be a good learning experience and I think it will be fun for the kids to learn and take care of them. I don't really know about cleaning up after them but it will be great to have fertilizer for the garden and for them to eat the bugs because we have plenty. Most of all I can't wait for the eggs. If it doesn't work out I know I can drop them off at Kimballs anytime. Do I have anyone convinced to get chickens?
Oh and did I mention.. Easton named his Ironman and Jaxon named his spiderman. Nice names for hens huh lol