2 pics of my daughter's chicks... one from last month, one from this month. Don't remember the breeds but they're suppose to be good layers. She has discovered one is a rooster. If he doesn't behave, she has a home for him.

I wish we could, but the allergies keep us from. But they are adorable Artemis! I love the buckeye ones.

Moonie, those are also cute. They are getting pretty big!

I don't have any chicks, but I sure do reap the benefits of a friend's chickens. What a difference in the quality of the eggs.

Yes, egg quality is amazingly different. I have been getting eggs from local farmers and a farmer's market or two.

The golden-tipped Wyandotte.

They are precious!! I am pretty sure if we had chickens I would never be able to eat chicken again.

DD keeps me in eggs, which I appreciate. They recently had roast chicken, since two of their flock turned out to be roosters.

I wish so bad I could "do" chickens but can't. My neighbor up the street just got some new chicks. they're bigger every day I pass. I would love to have fresh eggs because I eat one every day but I would never ever kill a pet chicken to eat it.

My friend's chickens, raised inside until the last week or so, still very young. They are afraid to go outside the barn, prefer to stay inside.

They need to have a safe place to run around outside, get plenty of sunshine, eat crawly things and graze on weeds. Their eggs won't even be very nutritious without some free range activity.

I'm jealous. But I'm also lazy. :(

Super cute, but I don't understand how people can raise and eat them. To me, it would be like eating my cat! I wouldn't mind eggs though. I pay a fortune for pastured eggs.

Considered way back around 1950 to start a poultry farm. We had the land, I had the knowledge and raising chickens for the eggs was profitable in Germany. Then It dawned on me that if I would want to make a living from them, I would have to slaughter the older chickens. That was the end of that idea. Our few chickens at home all died from old age.

Nice artemis_ma, et al. We had chickens back n the day. Ever see the film “The Egg and I”? That was us. Good times!

I'd love to pick up four chicks. It's against the rules here. That's ok for now. I'd love to have fresh eggs, but my chicks will be pets and not for food.

Chickens make great pets. I have a friend who had the sweetest pet Rooster too. She used to paint his nails with her nail polish. He seemed to love any/all attention. I've also been nuzzled by cows and seen their affection for their calves.....

It's the sole reason I became a vegetarian. I'm not making any value judgments with that statement and I'm not trying to "convert" anyone - I'm just saying for me, once I saw the affection, personalities, and emotions of so many critters, I realized I couldn't in good conscience eat them anymore.

I'd love to have some pet chickens for eggs...maybe once I retire. :)

jrb, I haven't seen the film, but will look for it!

For the broilers, I have started off with the mindset that they will become food, and my goal is that they have only "one bad day", which will be quick.

I find it harder and harder to justify (for myself) eating supermarket birds or other forms of meat - that I don't see how they live in their factory farms first hand simply means (for me) that if I am to remain an omnivore, I should try my best to source meats from direct farmers who raise their birds (and livestock) on pasture. (Honoring the "chickenness of the chicken" as Joel Salatin would say...) And, at least this year, do it myself. I may indeed find I don't want to do this again in the future. Yes, I will bring in someone with experience to do in the birds when their time comes, as after all, I do want that "one bad day" to be quick.

The broilers will be in a chicken tractor when old enough, and the layers will be in a coop with outside access, and an eventual tractor of their own.

They can't be entirely free-range, as we have a sizeable population of foxes and hawks in the area.

While my broilers are not that Cornish Cross (which will die a painful death if allowed to "live"), they're not going to be as hardy as the heritage egg laying breeds I received on Monday.

Patriceny, I totally respect and appreciate your viewpoint, and your reason for becoming vegetarian. I have several friends who have done the same. I actually understand this better than someone who told me last weekend, that he'd never want to eat one of my birds (I guess because he actually saw them in person for five minutes??), but is still content to eat the supermarket factory-farmed ones.

EDIT to ADD: I do also understand those who will eat chicken who cannot eat their own chickens they are raising, because they've gotten attached to them during the period of raising them, and have actually interacted with those specific ones. This is my first year at this, we shall see at this farmstead...

Artemis, if someone is going to eat meat - doing it the way you're doing it is approximately a million times better than the factory-farming/grocery store chickens. Those poor factory-farmed birds are basically tortured (in my opinion). Your critters will live a normal, happy life. Doing it your way is the "honest" way. Too many people just want to pick up the neat little cellophane packages in the grocery store and don't know and/or don't care what happened to that animal prior to that point.

People who hunt for their own food, or who raise their own animals for food, I genuinely have no quibble with. It's not something I could personally do - but I'm not delusional enough to think the human race is all going to become vegetarian. :) Factory farming is a nasty, cruel business and something I will have no part of.

I've been a vegetarian for 19 years now, I think, and I agree completely about factory farming, artemis. I couldn't eat something I raised, but it's magnitudes more humane than buying meat from a grocery store, so I applaud that. If you're going to eat meat, raising it yourself (or supporting ethical farmers) is the best way to do it. I wish everyone thought that way.

I buy all of my meat directly from a farm. I wouldn't touch grocery store meat. But I live in a small farming community where fresh privatly raised beef, pork, poultry is quite available. I do not find the prices to be much higher but maybe because this is a small community. The taste from a fresh farm chicken is very different from store bought that's pumped full of garbage as is the poor animials diet. There are people though that just don't have access to fresh hand raised in a humane manner meats snd have to rely on the grocery stores. I'm sure not judging anyone. I don't eat much meat myself. I'm not a vegetarian I just don't care for meat. Thats not to say I never eat it. Lol

I would love to raise some chickens. We have the perfect property to do it and my kids love chicken but we don't use many eggs outside of an occasional omelet or for baking, deviled eggs once in awhile or potato salad. In other words I couldn't use a daily supply of eggs. I could probably just give them away. Something to think about anyway.

Artemis, nice chicks you have.

I look forward to the day when I can again have chickens.

artemis, The Egg & I is a movie with Claudet Cobert and Fred McMurray. Speaking of “McMurray”, (like the segue here?) we ordered 25 day old, unsexed chicks from McMurray Hatchery. (This was back in the 1970s and I was trying to save $.) Eighteen of them turned out to be cockerels. At 6 weeks they started fighting each other. It was a big mess.

Jrb, I knew many of the family, and one of the the family ( I never found out who it was) married into the family tree. One of my kids went to school with one of the girls kids

A way back when I was on the farm (1940s), ordering chicks was a rite of spring. Our normal order was 2 to 3 dozen hens and 10 roosters. The hens were to replace our oldest laying hens and we'd start eating the young roosters when they were about 8 weeks old. Young roosters before they become fully mature are the best fryers.

The ratio we strove for in the chicken yard was about 10 hens per rooster. This seemed to keep all of them happy. These were free range chickens.

The hatchery has a problem with extra roosters because farmers want mostly hens for egg production. Therefore, if you order chicks without specifying the sex, those will be cheaper and the hatchery will unload a bunch of roosters on you.

A friend of our family worked at a hatchery and his job was to sort the newly hatched chicks into bins of male and female. He got paid based on the number of chicks sorted and accuracy. (I couldn't think of a more boring job, but some sorters were more gifted than others and they got higher pay.)

Awwww. We used to keep chickens for eggs, and we've had a couple of nice pet roosters who were extras. We couldn't keep the wild critters out of the hen house--they'd take advantage of any little break in the wire, and even a big rooster can't defend the hens in the middle of the night.

My DD keeps chickens, including Auracanas, so we still get fresh brown, green, and blue eggs, and I don't have to clean the hen house. ;) I do miss having a box of peeping babies in front of the fireplace.