Chickens are Complicated: Fresh Eggs are Not

by Christy Caplan | August 21, 2018

My chickens like watermelon, tomatoes and cottage cheese. Bananas – not so much. This is honestly all that is easy about my flock of ten plus a roo and now two chicks.

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But this isn’t a post about why chickens are complicated….just take my word for it. One of my hens is broody so all she wants to do is sit on eggs and while I’m supposed to kick her off her eggs and put her in a hutch with a metal or wire bottom I haven’t done it yet. She’s my fave hen and I think it may create bumblefoot so I’m holding off. This is a nasty foot issue they can get.

See what I mean? These silly hens are not easy. But watching them catch a bug and run around chasing each other to try and steal it from the hen that found it is hilarious. So while they aren’t easy, the lifestyle of keeping chickens suits me.

And I’m so excited to partner with Scratch and Peck on some upcoming posts – I’ll be reviewing their Organic Coop Confetti this month. Before I write about nesting boxes and the importance of integrating herbs into your daily clean up routine, I wanted to talk more about why keeping chickens is a great lifestyle for anyone. Whether you live in the country or in an urban setting, you may want to consider the following reasons I love caring for this flock I recently inherited.

I absolutely love the fresh daily eggs. I never thought I would get excited about finding eggs in boxes at the end of every day but I do!

Did you know the following 5 awesome facts about chickens?

1. They eat slugs and snails in your garden (gross! I’m constantly moving slugs with a shovel each a.m. and now I don’t need to do this anymore)
2. The dust bathe to get rid of parasites and to cool themselves off which at first I thought was crazy and now oddly enough I’m very used to this behavior and I find myself encouraging them to do this by adding peat moss to a small baby pool I bought for the dogs!
3. Fresh chicken manure can burn plants! So if you thought it was fine (me!) to just add fresh manure to your tomato plants, it must be composted first
4. Chickens cannot eat everything- there are actually some plants that are toxic like avocado but pasta is fine (ha!)
5. An egg is 74 percent water! They need fresh water every day- I spend about an hour in the a.m. in the coop, changing over water, adding feed to the chick’s brooder, throwing my broody hen out of the nesting box and giving them all worms and bugs!

Caring for these chickens has actually built my confidence – I am not a chicken expert but after reading blogs and books and asking a ton of questions I’m doing OK! Questions? Post any comment below. The fun of keeping chickens as you can see is more than collecting eggs!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmje5CNAK09/?taken-by=wagandcluck

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