Chickens For Eggs and Maybe Meat?

[Francie]

We love our chickens! We've had them for less than a year. We got them for their eggs and bug-eating abilities, and now we're considering some for meat. Although we eat a lot of vegetarian meals, we are currently all omnivores. When we eat meat, it's usually deer my husband hunts for in Iowa. We like chicken, but not the stuff that is in the grocery store! So I'm talking with my kids about us possibly eating some chickens we have grown ourselves. I told them that since they like to eat chicken, and we know we don't want to eat chickens that were confined in a cage and shot full of hormones, antibiotics, and whatever else they put in them these days, then they should think about taking responsibility for growing some happy chickens to eat. Like ours. They are free to roam and eat whatever they want, plus some of our fresh garden produce and kitchen scraps. They are locked up at night in an awesome chicken shack for protection.

So far, they've decided we can't eat our original named hens who give us eggs: Pippi, Special, Desiree, and Mrs. Stingbom. Not sure about Rooster Cogburn yet. Depends on how mean he gets! So we hatched some of our hens' eggs, and I told the kids not to name them while we figure this out. But 2 friends wanted to name some chicks. Moo and Bo. I always let chicken-less little friends claim and name our chickens whatever their little hearts desire. And then we ordered 6 new funny-looking chicks from a catalog, that the kids say we can't eat.

As it stands, it looks like we may end up with eggs up to our ears!

And I have to get crackin' on building a second and maybe a third coop.

So I don't have time to worry about this right now... just letting the kids absorb the idea.

I must say that taking care of chickens is much easier than I imagined. If you've ever thought about keeping some, you should look into it! You don't have to live on a farm; you could keep just 2 or 3 hens in your backyard. It is legal in a lot of places that you might have thought it wasn't!

http://www.backyardchickens.com