From Homesteading to making a Home

Reading the title, you may think, “What the heck does she mean by that?”

April of 2016, I decided it would be fun to take the chicken coop that was on our property when Max and I bought the house, to actually fill it with chickens. I did a little bit of research, and then mid-April, I brought 6 little babies home. Sheila (the cliché white chicken with black flecks), Buff (a Buff Orpington), Red (a Rhode Island Red), Fred and George (ina)(Welsummers), and Raptor (a Wyandotte). We kept them in a plastic tub in the garage, slowly raising the heat lamp week after week. And those 6 babies grew and grew, until about May I think it was, we put them out in the coop, and then it seemed like overnight, they were full size and laying eggs. Slowly at first, then right around August, I’d go out to 3-5 eggs a day!

Then, earlier this year, I brought some eggs in from the coop and realized I had 3 dozen eggs in our fridge!

The benefits:

• Farm fresh eggs every day
• No hormones
• Taste great
• Only costs $15 a month to feed the girls
• Weed control
• Peck the ground for bugs

The downfalls

• Can’t find a decent waterer, thus watering every day
• Access to coop isn’t ideal to collect eggs
• Chicken poop stinks up the coop and it’s difficult to clean it
• Must tend to chickens’ food and water in all weather situations
• HUSBAND DOESN’T LIKE EGGS (like what?)
• I don’t cook enough to utilize eggs
• Neither one of us has time to sell our eggs to family and friends
• Cluck at all hours of the day

So, what to do what to do.

We decided to pass off our chickens to our friends who moved up the street from us (up the street being like a 5 minute drive).

The downfalls

• We still have like 18 eggs in our fridge to use before they go bad (and I’m burnt out on eating eggs haha)
• I’ll miss having “organic free range farm fresh” eggs
• Our dog, Ruger, no longer can practice his herding techniques to round up the chickens once they’re done free ranging in the yard.

The benefits

• My husband and I can enjoy the peace and quiet of our back yard
• Dog doesn’t get distracted by chickens when he’s trying to do his morning business
• Saving $15/month
• Our friends said we are welcome to get eggs from them.

All in all, I think we made a good decision. I learned what it’s like to raise and tend to chickens, and quite frankly, it’s not for me. I would like to be able to jet off to a weekend destination with my husband and our dog, and have our friends feed my cat. Chickens aren’t hard to raise or tend to, but they are another level of commitment that just doesn’t fit the Wolcott lifestyle. But I am thankful to have had them, and they’re only a short drive up the road if I want to go pay a visit. J