Four Equals Ten in Chicken Math

When we first talked about getting chickens, I had a very low number in mind. After all, how many eggs does a single family need? The local feed stores sell chicks in minimum groupings of four. To me, four seemed like a great number. Granted some might be a rooster rather than a hen but I was willing to take the risk and just have a low number of chickens. I remember it all too well…

It was the weekend after Spring Break and we figured we wouldn’t be traveling for a while, what with school and work going on. So we decided to take that plunge and came home with four little fluffballs – Eenie, Meenie, Minnie, and Moe. They were all four leghorns so they were going to grow into white chickens that looked basically interchangeable. The store also had easy-to-build chicken coops for your basic 2-4 birds on sale. Score! We strolled out of there with the coop kit, shavings, chick crumble, chick grit, waterer, feeder, and four peeping chicks.

We knew that the coop kit was not going to be large enough for them to stay in full-time so I ordered a chicken run off of Amazon for $300 (we had gift cards to bring that price down, fortunately). That would give our girls (hopefully all girls as that’s what the employee told us) plenty of room to run in their new 10′ by 13′ enclosure. Also, since the solid part of the roof was a tarp, hopefully that meant the tax accessor could not consider it a structure. I kid you not. Side story: Our county tax office charged us $80 per year in taxes for a chainlink dog run that had two sheets of corrugated metal on it for a roof. Husband’s late grandma used that as her chicken coop.

Anywho, we get the chicks set up inside in an empty rabbit cage, got their heat lamp going, kids are fascinated, and all is well. Until the next weekend when we ventured into the local chain feed store again. This was a different one than last week. This store had different chicks. LOTS of varieties! In the preceding week, my husband had been yammering my ear off with what the qualities and characteristics of various chicken breeds were, how prolific they were at laying eggs, etc. I really didn’t think anything of it because we had four chicks; that would be sufficient for our egg needs, right?

Where’s the fun in that?

Apparently, Easter Eggers – a mixed breed chicken with a wide range of coloring in their feathers and egg shells – are fascinating because you never know what color egg you’ll get. I agreed to getting some Easter Eggers. Again, there is the quandary of them only selling four at a minimum. So our flock of four chickens became eight. Our coop kit is no longer going to fit the size increase so we start thinking of having to build a larger coop.

That is when my husband spotted something in the chicken area and got very excited about yet another chicken variety – the Jersey Giant. These are not like your standard chickens, no sir. If you can’t guess, these guys are BIG. They are one of the heaviest chicken breeds with hens weighing up to 10 pounds and the roosters getting up to 13 pounds. They have black feathers with a beautiful green tint on the roosters’ feathers. My husband was enthralled. However, we now had eight standard sized chickens that, rough estimate, should be putting out at least 1,500 eggs per year once they start laying. Did we really need more eggs?

We left that store with our four new Easter Egger chicks peeping away in their cardboard box and hit up a local big box store. He kept talking about those Jersey Giants and how awesome they would be. They’re reported to be fairly docile and can you imagine what it would be like if they came running up to greet you like big feathered dogs when you pulled into the driveway? I didn’t quite see the beauty in a massive group of large chickens running to me with enthusiasm; it seemed more like a weak plot from a B-budget movie. Maybe even a C-budget movie. Husband just kept going on about those Jersey Giants. I finally said that if he wanted them, we would have to get them NOW because they may or may not have them the following week. I don’t know about your local chicken purchasers but chicks around here were hot commodities!

We went back to the store – still with the four Easter Eggers peeping in their box in the car – and husband got a pair of Jersey Giants. The store clerk was trying to get us to get four but I told him we just bought chicks and they are still in the car if he didn’t believe me. I did not want to have to get another chicken run so a pair of the Jersey Giants was sufficient. We were allowed to only purchase two. Thus… our flock of four became eight within a week and then thirty minutes after becoming eight, it became ten. I put my foot down after ten. We do not need more birds regardless of their egg color or interesting personalities.

The girls have certainly grown from tiny little fluffballs into well feathered hens that enjoy grasshoppers and mealworms. Some of my more social Easter Eggers like to fly to my shoulder like they are parrots. That is fine unless they have chicken poop on their feet. That just grosses me out as illogical as that is considering it’s just processed feed, water, and bugs.

We did end up with one rooster. Any guesses as to which breed that was? Yep, one of the Jersey Giants. We call him Roo. He’s starting to come into his teenage hormones and being mean to the hens. He also likes to try and bite my fingers when I am out there handling the chickens. That just means I grab him and restrain his wings so he can’t hurt them while he gets lots of petting. I also have pinless peepers coming in tomorrow. Some of the hens are rather thin in the feathers on their backs so he’s going to go through some behavior modification. We shall see if it works. If he doesn’t learn his manners, I’m sure he will taste good with a nice herb seasoning. To quote Garth from the movie “Secondhand Lions,” “Now, boys, you’re fixin’ to let those teenage hormones get you into a world of trouble.” Let’s hope that Roo learns the error of his ways quick.