All Organic Eggs

One of the main reasons for building our chicken coop was to have our own fresh “real” organic eggs. This didn’t mean feeding our chickens corn products or other feeds from feed stores. Nope – we made our own chicken meal from scrap produce and day old bread. The chickens were crazy for it!

… and we reaped the rewards of having the freshest, sweetest eggs in the city!

One crack of our eggs and you can tell just in the shell that the eggs were sturdy and not thin, like store bought eggs. Since we also opted to feed our chickens a little bit of chicken shell back in their mix (ground fine of course)  this only bolstered the hardness of the shell by adding more protein into their system.

Making omelets, scrambled eggs and eggs every which way – our families and guests have really tasted the difference. They all claim the eggs are much creamier – maybe its due to no stress egg laying – we’re unsure as we are not scientists or doctors – but we have become really good farmers!

If you are interested in raising your own chickens, and it doesn’t take many – typically only one or two per family (and some people have more dogs and cats than that!), have a look at Dan Kennedy’s book on how to “Make Your Own Chicken Coop.” It was really easy and the videos were fun and inspirational to watch – not to mention educational!

Time to pick the chicken for your coop. But which variety? All of them are fine egg layers, some better than others. You should talk to the person you buy your chickens from to find out how well the breed (or strain) of chicken is as far as egg laying goes.

So our questions to our breeder:

1. Will Rhode Island Reds eat more than White Wyandottes?
2. Will either be foul (ha!) to each other of they are mixed in the coop?
3. Which one has the better egg?

To each of these questions it is based all upon the bird. Althouh we have recently discovered that the Rhode Island Red chicken has a stronger shell – that explains why most cooks use them and also why they are more expensive. (Write about feed and oyster shell new post – link it back here)

We also noted that it is fine to have all species of bird within the coop, but mind them when you ar epicking them out. You want to look them over very carefully to make sure they are not diseased or are missing too many feathers. Especially blood on chickens – if you see even a speck of blood on a chicken disregard it and look at the next.

Don’t be led into what the breeder wants to give you – pick your own. If you chose wrong, so be it – your choice. It won’t appear as the breeder was getting rid of the worst producers or sickliest stock.

So we chose 2 Rhode Island Reds and 2 White Wyandottes to start our flock – no rooster necessary (states the breeder). Getting them caged was another task and one that is best left for a friend with a truck. I think the interior of my car will smell like chicken droppings for quite some time.

Word of caution – DO NOT put your new birds in the trunk of your vehicle to get them home – if they don’t get baked in the sun or frozen in the winter they’ll surely get gassed by your cars emissions.

Here was the plan for this weekend: Find a site that offered us the best chicken coop plan which fit our budget and also fit the space in my backyard.

So I chose a plan that allowed for me to use my limited budget, limited tools and of course limited knowledge in building and carpentry. So I found a site that I just knew would help me build. It not only came with a manual I could print and take into the yard but it also had online videos to watch when I got stuck. Yes, I got stuck but not due to the manuals, basically due to my limited expertise. So it was really nice that I could simply go to the membership portion of the site and click on a video and see what I had missed in the manual.

It was also helpful that I could have my laptop on my deck and review everything without having to go in the house. Going in the house meant having to remove my shoes and try to get comfy while I read or watched the video. This was no time to get comfy!

Looking through all of the major plans some really stuck out more than others. You could easily tell which applications were BS (excuse my French). But some of these sites were simply garbage and really only tried to push a product. Not like MakeACoopOnline.com, they really went the extra mile to help novices like me and Margaret. Once we paid we got access to the manual (lots to print!) and also access to all the great instructional videos on building our chicken coop.

So, there you have it. We looked at 10 different sites and then narrowed it down to 2 or 3. When it came time to finmalize our purchase we based it on:

1. Ease of use
2. Amount $$
3. What it came with
4. Assistance if we got stuck (didn’t even need this!)

In the next article I am going to write about how we picked our chickens and the ensuing chase down the street to reclaim them after they got loose.

Helen.

www.chickensking.com