It's true Jean - your husband's reality. As a business you can make money but for 10 hens at home each dozen eggs would be about $300 a pop until you paid off the coop at $899 and the freight to a home at $365, not to mention buying the chickens. Started 17 week old laying poulets are about $12 each but the shipping on them is $49 (they do come with their shots however). Then there is the feed and having to work it each day to keep everything extremely clean and fresh. You have to keep chickens away from wild birds and their droppings, not to mention the predators, but oh the romance of having a barnyard and a self sustaining life (without the hard work of course because you are rich enough to hire a few people to actually run the place). He he he... My co-worker had chickens and their chickens lived outside during the day and sometimes at night, but had a shed they could go into if they wanted. They lost some to predators and sometimes the eggs were just laying around on the ground and other times the hens would lay in thick shrubby growth at the edge of their woodlot (in the brambles). Betcha egg gathering was the pits there! She said they shot a opposum one time that was raiding a favorite hen's nest - the hen woke them up screaming her bloody head off and running to beat the band (they are fast she said) and with the flashlight they saw the possum on the nest eating the eggs. Boom - bye bye possie. Awww...... poor possie - he only wanted some fresh eggs too!

HTown, don't be too comfortable with them. I've been feeding the ones in our yard off and on for awhile, but I never get too close to them. No matter how "familiar" you may be with them, they still have an instinctive distrust for people and they have the potential to be dangerous. Most people don't like them because they've had bad experiences with them, just like many other types of wildlife that invade or wreak some form of destruction on their property, and that's completely understandable. They can also be aggressive towards pets. I made a point of mentioning to my neighbors that there were raccoons active in our area. If you get to feeding them and slack off, they could move on to another property where they're not as welcome and that could have negative consequences for the neighbor, the raccoon or both. I'm not saying don't feed or enjoy them, but make sure you educate yourself on them before you get into it on a regular or semi-regular basis. Make sure there are no means for them to access your house including the roof and chimney, because once they know where the food is coming from they could try to find an easier way to get to it. It's best not to leave food for them near your house for this reason. One of the first things I did when I knew how much they came around was make sure they couldn't get on our roof from any trees, the area around our deck was sealed, and our chimney cap was secure. I added chicken(Actually smaller gapped fencing than chicken wire) wire around the opening to ensure there was no access.(Something I was going to do anyway to deter the birds that ended up in our living room.) This link I found can cover it a little more indepth. These are just tips, but they can be helpful. Feeding Tips I guess my message is it's fine to enjoy them, but make sure you know what you're getting yourself in for, as there are a few things to consider. :-)

We just had our first grosbeak in three Springs, too! A fine, fat male sat right on the Droll Yankee feeder next to the French doors for a good ten minutes... We've also seen lots of goldfinches, house finches, the usual downy, hairy, red-bellied woodpeckers and flickers, but we're noticing rather unusual sparrows (chipping, song, black-throated...)and some great blue herons are using us as a flyway, too. Oh, and a pair of wood ducks visited the silver maples a while back--it was funny watching them wobble on the branches, trying to perch! Dh thinks he saw bluebirds in the fields over the weekend, too. The STRANGEST thing we've seen since moving here was last year, when a flock of what turned out to be AFRICAN CATTLE EGRETS (!!!!) grazed the fields for a few days. Becky

Two out of the three hummingbird feeders are up. Now, the waiting game. Last year I saw my first ones on May 7. I don't have a clear view of the porch feeders from my reading chair inside so I need to get up and go to the window but in better (warmer) weather when I'm out on the porch they are up close and personal. There is one feeder on each end of the porch, about 90 feet apart. The third goes on the wisteria covered pergola at the end of the front walk, maybe 50 feet away. It makes a nice triangle - or racetrack - for them to zoom around and play. I suspect that a nest(s) are somewhere in the cedar hedge nearby that separates my property from the next door neighbor but haven't been able to find them. I do enjoy watching other birds but I'm still very much a novice. The more flamboyant birds I recognize easily, it's the more common ones that still look alike to me that I have no confidence in my IDs. I'm just learning what to look for. Our local Nature Conservancy has been a big help to me and I have many field guides. I also enjoy learning about interesting facts and behaviors that birds exhibit. I'm a big fan of crows because that's just about all I see in the winter. I decided that I'd learn to like what I have and that's been fun. One spring the crows alerted me to a barred owl that was sitting on some patio furniture on my front lawn. What a fuss they made swarming and screeching - the numbers were incredible. Another time a persistent crow let me know that there was something trapped In the downspout of the garage. DH was able to dismantle it and rescue a baby squirrel that had slipped into it and couldn't get out. Excellent! Sorry for such a wordy post!