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Which Came First? The Chicken or the Egg?

We all know that first came the chicken . . if we’re talking about the order in which the obsessions happened around here. I had wanted chickens since . . well, I guess all my life but when we lived out in the country in Kentucky is when I first began seriously begging for chickens. That got me nowhere. Vince did not want chickens! I didn’t give up though because for quite a few years, he had told me he didn’t want a dog and then he decided I could have a dog and we got Speck and Vince loved him from Day 1 so I knew it was just a matter of time before he decided we needed chickens.

We moved to Missouri and ended up smack dab in the middle of town and I was still begging for chickens. For two years Vince said “We should probably get chickens, but . . you know . . we live in town and can’t have chickens in town!” I fell for that line . . until one day I was talking with my mail man and don’t ask me how we got on the subject of chickens because I don’t remember . . just like I don’t remember how we got on the subject of his wife leaving him for another man and how she would tell him she was going to the grocery store but she was really meeting her lover and . . that was just a little too much information but . . we were talking about chickens one day and I said “I really want chickens but since we live in town, we can’t have them!” He said “You can too!  I know lots of people in town with chickens!”  Really? I raced in the house, looked it up on the internet and  yes . . the rules were something like . . hens had to be 100′ from the neighbor’s property line, roosters had to be 200′ and you could only have so many chickens.

When Vince walked in the door . . I said “We ARE getting chickens!” and handed him a copy of the city ordinance. He was shocked . . and probably not in a good way. So, that is how our chicken raising began.

I was perfectly happy getting chickens in the spring . . going to Tractor Supply and looking at all the babies – promising each other when we walked through the door that we were there just to look . . not buying a single one . . no way! We almost always left with baby chicks. Now we’re overloaded with chickens. Not long ago, we said . . all we need are about 8 good laying hens. We have 30 chickens. Not all are hens, and not even all the hens will be good layers (I hope!).

Out of the clear blue . . the last thing on my mind was buying an incubator and hatching my own eggs . . when on Saturday, someone on Facebook asked if anyone wanted black Australorp hatching eggs. She is now selling them and was offering them to her friends first. I said “I would love to have some but I guess I need an incubator first!” Yes, she said . . you would need an incubator. Ordered on Saturday, arrived yesterday!

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Incubator

Now, I can’t stop looking at hatching eggs for sale online. I have eggs coming. I’m not even sure how many. The hatch rate for mail order eggs isn’t so great and with me being a beginner at this, my hatch rate may be zero but folks, if they all hatch . . Vince is not going to be a happy chicken daddy because either he is going to have to build a bigger coop or since there’s just two of us, we may have to move into one of the coops and give the chickens the house!

I can hardly wait to get started with the hatching but the problem is . . the eggs hatch in 21 days and then what do you do? Put the incubator back in the box and stick it in the storage building or do you order more eggs and hatch more chickens and if you order more eggs and hatch more chickens, where do you put the little rascals and when they start laying, what do you do with all the eggs?

If Vince thought buying fabric was bad, and buying yarn was bad, just wait til the effects of buying hatching eggs hits!  🙂

 

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Oh my! You sound like you are addicted to chickens! LOL
    I hope that does not happen with the rest of your animals!

  2. I think you had better plan on having a few meals of chicken soup, chicken pot pie, fried chicken,etc.

  3. oh, hatching is so much FUN! I have only hatched one batch of chickens, but have hatched several Coturnix quail eggs – one hatch was 6 dozen eggs and about 5 dozen hatched (and these were shipped too). That was a LOT of quail! Oh, but they were sooooo cute! Makes me want to do it again! Quail eggs are awesome pickled, mmmm..

    • DANG – “for the morning smiles”. Keyboard isn’t playing nice today 🙂

  5. Judy, you have such a zest for life and trying new things.

    Maybe you can sell baby chicks? Could you be a supplier for your Tractor Supply store?

  6. What a fun and new adventure! That’s what keeps you young! ENJOY!

  7. Sounds like fun. Maybe you need to be raising some for the freezer……….not eggs!

  8. Another thought……Goat update please! When are they arriving? Have you gone to the goat man’s ranch and met them yet? Any pictures?

  9. We love hatching eggs but limit ourselves to one batch a year – mostly to restock the freezer (I haven’t tried your broth trick yet – that will happen with this year’s batch!)

  11. LOL we will need progress pictures like pregnant women do on Facebook, eggs hatching

  12. Great Judi! I am approaching lockdown on my first batch of eggs from my own chickens. I made my incubator, Hubby really doesn’t mind, as long as I don’t spend to much on them! LOL We cobbled together a pretty good coop and got our 11 chickens for free with two bags of food, so not doing to bad there! Although he is planning a bigger coop for them. And we were only wanting a few eggs to eat!

  13. i’m not chicken smart….so, couldn’t you just hatch the eggs your chickens lay? or are you trying to get different chickens. perhaps you could hatch some ducks, too. or guineas. hahahaha have fun. poor Vince. hahahaha

  14. I remember my Nona used to incubate chicken eggs in the oven! —we always had chickens growing up in big Italian family. The chickens (and eggs) were a food source though—I can remember cleaning and plucking chickens. PS. That’s probably why I’ve never wanted chickens.

  16. I like incubating eggs, my incubator was a kerosene model, (the heat came from the kerosene burner) not electricity, and they needed hand-turned several times a day, no fancy automated models like what is available today. The 2 main things I remember is the candling to “weed” out the nonfertilr or no chick growing in the egg and the humidity levels, pans of water on the bottom shelf, Since Texas is dry that could be your biggest frustration, but these new models will make you a whiz kid at this. Good luck. Kathy in Colo

  17. Love your chicken stories. After many years of wanting, I have chickens finally. My husband always said no. We are in the city and are allowed to have hens but no roosters. I have 4 sweet ladies. I love it.

  18. My neighbor kids hatch out eggs. They even traded me a rooster for a dozen eggs and I can tell which chickens came from my eggs. 🙂 You are going to have so much fun with this!

  19. well, if you have one like what I used to have, you can hatch chicken eggs, even duck and goose eggs (you need to sprinkle a little water on them – usually directions are included). You can also hatch quail eggs, pheasant eggs and I’ve heard turkey eggs as well – although I never tried that.
    Barring that – chicken is a lot healthier to eat than beef or pork, so you might consider that as you make your chicken pot pie, chicken gumbo, chicken friccasee, baked chicken, stewed chicken and dumplings, etc.
    Or -you might recoup some of your money spent by offering live chickens for sale – hens or roosters. Or eggs from among the many dozen eggs you will be getting! LOL
    FWIW – that’s what happened to me – and as it turned out, the sales of the few dozen eggs more than paid for the chicken feed for all the chickens plus! Oh – and my chicken flock was 120 hens and a dozen roosters!

  20. then what do you do? Put the incubator back in the box and stick it in the storage building or do you order more eggs and hatch more chickens and if you order more eggs and hatch more chickens, where do you put the little rascals and when they start laying, what do you do with all the eggs?…..

    i say you do the obvious and begin selling the eggs for others to hatch in their newly purchased incubator! LOL

  21. LOL! I have to say” I love you!” I love the laughter you bring and the enthusiasm (did I spell that right?) you have for life.
    Your blog is the first one I read each morning and the last one I check before bed.

  24. I’ve learn’t so much about chickens from following your blog even makes me think having chickens isn’t such a strange thing.

  25. That is just too funny. catch a photo of Vincent as you tell him, or better still when he looks in the parcel of fun and finds it is not wool but eggs (he would have to wonder why you are buying eggs when you have so many chickens). I am giggling just thinking about it.

  26. I love that you’re doing one more really great thing we can learn from. You know, if I lived out there and had extra eggs or chickens, I’d barter with the neighbors for fruit from their trees, or labor, or the loan of some equipment you don’t have…and there’s likely a soup kitchen somewhere near you that would love free eggs…

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