For those of you who have found me, welcome. My family would describe me as “intense”. When I decide to do something, whether it be sailing, cooking, gardening, or raising my chickens, I try to do as much research as I possibly can so as to not make stupid mistakes (I make plenty without doing the stupid ones).
My dear, lovely wife came up with this great idea that I should write a blog about my different pastimes. She calls me the original renaissance man. So while this website is called TheChickenPoop.com, you may find something other than the aforementioned topic (at least I hope so or this could become a very boring website).
My History
Now for my brief history, I am by trade a decorative concrete stainer who enjoys working with my hands. I have been doing this for 20 years and really enjoy it. It is awesome to take plain, boring concrete and make it look beautiful. I will never become a millionaire doing this, but I do provide for my family. I am ok with that. Being a small company, I choose to not have a big crew to manage, so that I can have more nonbusiness time to do things I want. That is where the idea for this website originated.
Eggs
My wife and I have always talked about moving to the country with a few acres to do as we please. While we are waiting for that to happen, I have started researching different interests. About a year ago, I was reading somewhere how poor the quality our store bought eggs are. I decided I should raise chickens. I knew nothing about raising chickens, but decided I would learn.
Land Needed For Chickens
I digress for a moment; I live in a residential community on about 1/10 acre (small). My small backyard is completely fenced and has a 5 ft high flagstone retaining wall in the middle of it. By city ordinance we are allowed maximum six chickens and no roosters and no, you do not need a rooster for your girls to lay eggs.
In my readings the only real suggestions given for chicken real estate was 6 to 10 square ft per bird. My suggestion would be, the more square footage the better. Small areas will become a plantless desert because they will eat all of your grass. I know because remember ‘small backyard’.
Chicken Entertainment
That said, my girls seem to be very content. They have a number of distractions to entertain themselves, they have a wall to climb and compost piles to rummage through. I garden so when it is not planted they love to dig around in there for bugs. They also climb on the lawn equipment to play queen of the hill.
My wife tends to indulge my idiosyncrasies if I can reasonably defend my decisions. When I told her about this idea she wasn’t excited about it but wasn’t opposed to it. After about 5 months of researching I built a coop and run. I then purchased 4 girls, one Gold Comet, one Orpington and two Red Star sex-linked chickens.
Naming the “Girls”
The red stars were already named Mabel and Trudy so all we had to do was name the other two. My son immediately named the Orpington ‘Climb’ because as soon as we let them out of the crate she had to climb on top of the coop. This was while everyone else huddled together trying to figure out where they were. Since I am not that energetic about names the last one was named ‘Red’.
I now fast forward 8 months later, my wife loves her girls. Her office overlooks their area and when she needs a distraction they are always happy to oblige.