So, are you chicken?

I like chickens, even though I don't particular care to eat them. I will if that's what we've got. For the past 10 years or so we've raised and kept laying hens and raised the occasional flock of broilers. We've always paid for processing the broilers, though, because we've been unwilling to do it ourselves. That's likely to change though.

The issues that I've had with the broilers:

1. They're just nasty disgusting animals.
2. Their health is fragile and frequently poor.
3. Their mortality rate is unacceptably high.
4. They crap all over each other.
5. Do I really need another reason?

Laying hens have typically not been an issue except buying new ones in periodically is expensive. Feeding them is also expensive, so the eggs cost us more than the ones at the store. But the eggs are also much better than the ones at the store.

At times in the past I've had the chickens do work for me, but with everything else going on I've let that go somewhat. Plus we haven't been able to justify keeping a sufficient quantity of the girls to really get the jobs done. That's about to change.

My inspiration to get back into serious chickening is "The Small-Scale Poultry Flock" by Harvey Ussery. Brilliant! From building a henhouse to breeding to butchering to feeding to putting the girls to work, Harvey covers just about everything that a homestead "flockster" (Harvey's term for chicken farmers) is likely to need. If you can't afford to buy the book, convince your local library to buy it. Or if you can afford it, buy two and donate one to the local library. It's well worth reading.