Well, yesterday I went shopping for two dozen eggs and then realized I needed some chickens for eggs. I was a little shocked at the final price of eggs. I picked up the regular large eggs, not the free range chicken or brown eggs, and still paid over $10 for them. So, what’s up with that? I know the chickens don’t lay as many eggs in the winter but this is a top price. Should I shop around for the eggs or be glad they have eggs on the shelf? So many questions but I have one answer.
It’s too bad that we are not allowed to have “farm animals” in the county I live in unless you have some serious acreage around your home. Who wouldn’t like a few chickens in their yard to eat the bugs and to lay some of those precious eggs. I know some people don’t like to be woken up by the crowing of roosters. But, I think you could get some chickens without a rooster. Of course, I think chickens feel safer with a rooster about. And, who better to offer the chickens a little extra special bite of greenery than a rooster.
At home, we also saved all the table scraps for those chickens to pick through. They also loved a bunch of grass to scratch about in. I guess they are looking for bugs and worms.
Red Chickens & Ducks
So, now a bit of a stroll down memory lane. Yes, I grew up on some acreage and we always had a handful of chickens and ducks. We favored those big red chickens over the white ones. The red chickens also lay brown eggs.
In fact, we generally raised the chickens from chicks. At the feed store located on Main Street, certain times of the year they sold those cute baby chicks. Sometimes our mom would allow us to pick out the baby chicks we wanted. We generally got about five baby chicks to take home in a cardboard box. The feed store had a tall metal cage for all the chicks and they all “peeped” at the same time. Generally, we tried to pick out the biggest looking chicks, which sometimes turned out to be roosters.
You had to keep baby chicks warm, so we kept them in the house for awhile and fed them finely chopped hard boiled eggs and with some chicken mash. Of course, you had to give them some water. Plus, you had to show them how to drink the water the first couple of times.
We also had about five Mallard ducks which laid their eggs on the ground. The ducks eggs were always dirty and sloppy looking. Generally, we didn’t eat many duck eggs as they tended to taste a bit greasy.
There was only one time I remember not having a small flock of chickens and that is when we lived in the half of a double house in the “city”. When my family moved out to the country again, sure enough a large chicken coop was built and a few chickens were about.
Chickens don’t require much care and are fairly friendly.
However, red roosters are another matter. We had a couple of mean roosters. To collect eggs in the chicken coop you always brought the broom in with you to shoo the rooster away. As soon as you entered, his domain, he started to investigate the situation. Oh boy, please I only want to collect the eggs.
Ending Notes on Chickens for Eggs
In ending, I’m thinking about chickens for eggs when I see the price of eggs.
I live quite near to a farm, so it only takes less than five minutes to get there and check out the chickens.
Sometimes life is like that, nearby chickens but only at the farm and not in my backyard.
Actually, I should be giving my Readers a note about New Years. No way, the blog is on chickens for eggs but Happy New Year, too!