Never kept a rooster for very long. Not even Buster, the handsome devil in the picture to the left.

It's not so much that they are noisy, but that they are noisy at such an early hour. My lifestyle and that of most roosters I have known simply didn't fit well together. I am a night-owl and they are, well, roosters, Ma Nature's alarm clock, a clock Ma Nature sets for when she thinks I should get my lazy butt out of bed.

Never noticed any difference in an egg's flavor when I did have roosters around. When you first switch from supermarket eggs to your own fresh eggs, you will be overwhelmed by the difference, it will be so obvious. If there is any difference between fertile and non-fertile eggs, it will be a whole lot more subtle and probably not worth writing home about.

If it keeps peace with the neighbors and lets me sleep in, I'm all for a rooster-free zone. I've ordered all pullet this time. They should arrive next month to start my new flock.

Wayne

Chickens...everyone should have chickens once in their life...especially on the dinner plate. Had them for about 9 years. I'm not an expert on them, but as far as the rooster goes...forget it if you live that close to other neighbors (they won't be freindly neighbors for very long). I moved from the city to our 2 acre farm, and I gotta tell you I was ready to choke our neighbors as they had a rooster that had the worst cock-a-doodle dooer you have ever heard in your life!!! It did that about an hour before the break of dawn every morning in my window!!! Screeching thrill sound, that would mix your brains up!!!

Yes, I had roosters and no roosters, and it didn't make any difference in the taste or quality of the eggs. One point though....make sure they have a calcium block because they may start pecking their own eggs for it, and when they learn to do that, you can't stop them. You'll never get any eggs after they learn to do that. Happy chicken farming!

quote:

Originally posted by Hairy Moose Knuckles:
You used to be able to go down the road to any farmer and get a few chickens, but now you have to keep paperwork and have them inspected here in Texas, even if you just raise a few. I miss them, wify doesn't.

Just draw and quarter me ....the world is coming to an end, life ain't worth living! Next thing you know, if I spit in my front lawn I will have to file paperwork in triplicate!

Achem, back to chickens....

1. Used to raise Chickens for meat and eggs, hoping to start up again this spring.

2. definitely nix the rooster. They not only crow at dawn, but at 4 am. The neighbors will lynch your dad. And yes, they often get nasty.

3. I have had homegrown eggs both with and without a rooster. I never could tell a difference.

4. Chickens without a rooster aren't that noisy. The sounds they make don't travel that far and are very peaceful. And, probably most importantly, after they go to bed (unless you bang on their house or you toss a dog in there), they are almost totally silent until you let them out of their pen. They do sometimes make these cute sleeping clucks, but you can barely hear them.

5. How soon they start laying eggs really depends on the breed, but Major is right, about 6 months.

6. How many eggs per week depends greatly on the breed. To be most accurate, you could probably just google the breed he is getting. But winter darkness and cold will slow them down. Some breeds are affected by the coldness much more than others.

7. All the pointers the others gave you were great. Other things I can think of are

a)Make sure you lock them up every night, or the varmints will get them.

b)What we did which worked well, was let the chickens out of their house in the morning, but keep them in their fenced enclosure until noon. After noon, we would let them out of the fenced enclosure to go where they wanted, then everything was locked up at evening time. This kept at least most of the eggs laid in the chicken yard, instead of all over the Ranch. But if the yard is big enough, you can keep them in the yard all of the time. If you *DO* decide to let them out of the yard, do NOT do it until they are older, maybe 4 months old.

c)As to feeding them their own egg shells. This is great, because their calcium requirement is high. But we always would toast them in the oven first, as well as crush them, then feed them to the chickens. This is important, because a hen that learns to eat eggs will ALWAYS eat eggs, and teach the other hens too.

d)We also used dummy eggs. It helped tell the chickens where to lay. Some chickens are happier laying if it is a proven nest. Our dummy eggs were either wood or rock. We kept loosing them though, mostly because snakes would eat them.

e) I agree with the others though...a pond like that needs ducks!

Right now I have only one rooster. The hen died this winter. They are several years old. One of my grandkids got two chicks for easter (wrong move by someone) and when they got big enough to jump out of the box, they came to Grandpas place. My coop had been empty for a while. This rooster is nasty. About all he is good for is hackle for making fishing lures.

I have kept chickens many times for both meat and eggs. I don't like them running in the yard and garden during growing season. They eat or dig up my garden. They also leave their little droppings all over the place. They will eat about anything except for a box-elder bug. After the gardening season, I would let them out for about an hour just before sundown. Then lock them up at dark. If they can get some fresh greens, the egg yolks will be of a darker color. I have had people reject these eggs because of the color. Oh well......

Yes, many critters like to kill the chickens, some for sport and some for food. Dogs are the worst. Skunks, fox, racoons, coyotes, eagles, hawks, and weasels, have all gotten some of my chickens. Cats will kill small chicks. I recommend you keep them locked up in a pen built good enough that a varmint can't get in or dig under and get in.

I am not trying to discourage you, but rather to encourage you to do it. It can be very rewarding, however knowing some of these things in advance may help you to avoid some trouble and heart aches.

I used to keep a rooster with the hens, maybe two, depending on how many hens I had. The reason for this is that I also have an incubator that holds 72 eggs, and I wanted fertile eggs for hatching. Every spring I would hatch off a batch for some fryers. then keep just a few hens for eggs.

When the kids were home I used a lot of eggs, but now its just me and the wife, we don't need so many.

Hmmmmm, maybe I should get a few hens in the spring?

I was going to mention that if you had a dozen hens you would probably get about ten eggs a day once they start laying. They will lay every day for a while then skip a day. You can use this to decide how many you need to keep to get the eggs you desire. No use feeding many more chickens than that unless you can sell the eggs. Chicken feed isn't cheap and its going up like all grain products.

I would love to have chickens again, if I knew we could build a pen that was totally varmint-proof (it's amazing how they can get in places where you didn't even know there was a hole).

Our city passed a law against having roosters several years back, so roosters are out. Otherwise, I would love to raise chickens for food, then I would know where my meat came from.

--J--

oh my gosh. This is soooooo very helpful! I will pass all this info along. Good decision to nix the rooster then. 4am is a liiiitttle early indeed.

What is a nest egg for? To "show" the chickens where to do there thing? Do you have to keep leaving the nest egg out even after they get the swing of things?

Do you need to set something up for the chickens to lay in? Like a nest or something? I've seen the coop my dad made, but I'm not sure what he has inside. Maybe I'll take a pic next time I'm there and ask your feedback.

As far as the 16 hours of light, we're not talking about direct sun, right? ha ha ha!! I thinking direct sun for vegetables! The coop and fenced in section is under one of the big willow trees.

My father does have ducks - about 4 or 5 maybe. And also a pair of white geese that like to stick their tongues out and scare people. They do get duck eggs!

It's so hard to hear about chicken noodle soup!! But as long as we're talking about it, how long would you guys keep a chicken b/4 you know what?

Thanks for all this info!

quote:

But as long as we're talking about it, how long would you guys keep a chicken b/4 you know what?

Never got to the "you know what" stage. Long before I stopped eating meat, we stopped butchering our own chickens. I never got the hang of it. It was too much of a mess and too time consuming to get those damn endless feathers off that we gave up on raising our own meat birds. Just kept laying hens after that. We raised rabbits then and I could "you know what" a half-dozen or more rabbits in less time then I could make a complete mess of single chicken.

After that, we bought our meat chicken at the local supermarket and our old hens lived a life of comfortable retirement. The old girls had the run of the place and as they got older, found a summer's eve the perfect time to roost up in the hedgerow rather than dutifully return to the safety of the coop like their younger replacements. In the morning, we would often find a half-dozen of the old biddies perched on the railing of the porch to say hello and get a handful of cracked corn as I left for the day.

They usually met their maker either through old age or occasionally by being snagged up by a passing hawk.

Even though I haven't eaten meat in about 10 years, I have no problem with other folk's diets and have given away lots of young roosters (on Freecycle) to people whom I am quite sure are not keeping the birds as pets.

Wayne

The nest egg is supposed to keep them laying in the same place. If you take thier egg or all the eggs out of the nest, the hen may think her nest has been broken up by a varmint and move to another place. In a small pen or coop this is not a problem, however in a larger area or free range, you will have to HUNT the new nest every day. Not always, but most of the time. More so with pullets, as it is a natural thing to move to a safer place. After all, its her babies to her we are stealing every day. Older hens I guess get accustomed to it and dont worry about it. They will go to the same nest every day egg or not. But we always left a nest egg for them in each nest.

Wayne, I like your story a lot. This is how I would do it if I were the keep the chickens. My father, however, is excited about "fresh" chicken.

Lisaann, thanks for posting that pic! It sure brought a smile to my face remembering that funny day meeting my cyberfriend in real life!

I just noticed your question at the bottom. If we're talking to scale, the chicken area would be about 2 inches off the left side of the pic, on the house side of the pond. The idea is more fun now that I'm learning more about it. My father has been obsessed with it. my mother told me he was talking in his sleep the other night. Said, "The chickens will be ready in April", then after a pause, "I'm going to get 6 or 8 of them". so funny! Of course, my mother has been just yelling at him every day about the rooster. He won't listen to her, but I think he'll listen to all this advice.

An old trick for those whose chickens start pecking at the eggs. Take an egg, poke a couple of holes and blow the inners out and refill with hot sauce and seal up the holes, one or two pecks on this egg stops the eating of the eggs.

Also if a rooster is chasing you around all you have to do is chase him back like your going to catch him... makes him turn and run the other way fast and stops him from trying to intimadate you. I have to admit that I once had a pheasant hen that was nesting come after me and it didn't take me long to turn and get my behind out of the pen!

I almost died laughing picturing myself turning around the run after the rooster. This is not something I'm willing to try! When the white geese stick their tongues out at me at like 30 feet, I'm like, let's get the hell outta here.

This nest egg business is fascinating. So farmhound - do you just sort of sacrifice one egg as the nest egg, keep it a few days in there, then throw that out and replace it with a new less funky nest egg?

Up here there is actually a family slaughter house that you can bring your live chickens too, and then come back later and get them all packaged up like at the supermarket!

When I was little, there was a traveling guy who would come out to your place. He had a great big van, and do everything in the back, and then hand out freshly wrapped meat. But when all those new regulations came out, he couldn't figure out how to satisfy them all...so had to find different work.

Usually we ate the chickens either right after the first molt (young enough to still roast or fry them, old enough to tell the males from the females). Otherwise they 'went' when it was clear the female wasn't laying anymore (so stew). Sometimes though, with a very old hen, she just looked 'off'. Then we would cook her for a very long time, and feed the picked off meat to the dogs. The only other reasons were if a hen was the obvious major 'underdog' or bully, and if the rooster was horrid.

I always wondered about that. When I was little we didn't have problems with the roosters we bought. We bought all new chickens every 2 years or so. And as time went on, it got to the point, that the new roosters were simply meaner and meaner.

oops, just remembered, you asked about nest boxes too.

You need about one box for every 3 to 4 hens.

They like them a bit dark (not pitch dark, but dim). I can't remember exact size, but about a foot on all sides I think, and maybe 1 to 2 feet above the ground.

Your local library might have a chicken book that would give actual dimensions and such.

was talking to brother over the weekend, i mentioned ordeing chickens, he said he is getting out dads old encubater and was going to hatch pheasant and quail and turkey, through a state program somehow, i was going to order some white rocks but i may just look for fertile eggs and hatch myself, the encubater is huge, has 13 trays,1300 chicken egg total, all ceder construction do to humidity, i pretty sure chicks hatch in 21 days, used to have it full, the local farmers brought me eggs, i kept half of what hatched, was expensive to run, and you are married to it , like turn the eggs three times a day,then candle them about a week in to look for life, after only a few days you can see blood viens and heart starting to develope, you remove bad , or unfertile eggs , i used to wash and write on the eggs, farmers initials, the date set and due date with a pencil, but what a sound and sight comes hatch day, i used to keep coffee cans with water in the bottom, just before the goose eggs was due to hatch i would put them in cans of water to float, this softened up the thick egg shell, but was fun watching the egg twitch and bounce around in the warm water, i had a very high success rate on goose eggs, better than the commercial hatcheries, brother had 25 leggerns and is down to one hen, dang varments, i realy enjoyed those turkens/naked necks, allways a conversation piece, we had mille fluer, anacondas-green/blue egg layers, one time i ordered a hundred mixed bird special, that was a sight roaming the yard, banty chickens are good mothers for hatching own eggs, my dad put a duck egg under the hen one time and she hatched it, that lil duckling realy thought the hen was the mama and mama hen had an unconditional love for the ugly lil deformed looking chicken with the big bill/beak and webbed feet, watching the lil duckling try to scratch in the dirt like the mother hen was so funny