Chicken Math - It’s Wild
February 18, 2021 (Thursday) - I spoke too soon yesterday when I wrote about adding in 28 new laying hens. That was a lie. I forgot to take into account, in the algorithm, the craziness of chicken math.
The joke of #ChickenMath started due to a TikTok by Paige at Farmhouse Vernacular. She was talking about the “crazy thing” of “chicken math” and how, no matter how hard you try to plan for a specific number of chickens, you will always (ALWAYS) end up with more than what you planned for.
Let’s start with 2020…
I know I told you in the last blog that we had planned to have six chickens and that that somehow turned into 14 laying hens and 550 meat birds. While the meat birds are gone, frozen and being thoroughly enjoyed - in fact, I have a pot simmer three chicken carcasses right now to make bone broth, the first step my secret sauce chicken stock that I have been canning every other week.
… Let’s finish with 2021.
I had ordered eight olive egger (OE) chicks to go with my eight ColorPaks and my eight Dark Copper Marans. The latter two breeds were coming from my favorite hatchery in Junction City, Oregon, Jenks Hatchery. When I walked into the garage yesterday, where the chicks were hanging out before moving to the brooder house that was still drying from the wash out a few days ago, I shrieked loud enough to have the fiancé come running!
I had intentionally placed the cover on the cat door to the outside world because my fiancé’s male cat had been sneaking in to sleep on top of my barn jackets on the freezers. Knowing that he really enjoys a delicious meal any time he can get it, that the chicks would be easy pickings for him.
I had, apparently, made the mistake of putting the door cover on the wrong side of the garage door. He had simply used his large size to barrel through the hole, get into the garage, investigate the box of chicks and, as I came through the garage door after hearing the noise of the covering falling off, grabbed a poor little ColorPak chick!
While extremely sad, I have only myself to blame. I should have realized that he was a large enough male that he could have unhooked the cover and that he would be curious enough about the warmth and the chicks to want to investigate. He was long gone into the night and, as I stared forlornly out the small garage door window, I knew there would be no point in trying to get the chick back.
Our chick count was down but my original numbers were off. There are seven ColorPak chicks remaining and TEN of the Dark Copper Marans for a total of 17 chicks.
Then I went to get the Olive Egger chicks…
Stuck in an appointment, my mother actually ended up picking up the OE chicks for me. I had ordered eight but had told the Facebook page responder-person that I would be willing to go as high as twelve. They had reached out to see if we could take the chicks a week early as this week’s shipment to Texas was going to have to be postponed. I told them it was no problem, our brooder house is set up for 100 meat bird chicks at a time!
Those must have been the magic words.
Ummm… how many did you order?
My mother texted me absolutely concerned.
What do you mean?
I asked back.
All she did was reply with a photo… a photo of a box FILLED with little chicks! The result? FORTY-THREE chicks! A large percentage were the OE chicks but there were also Black Copper Marans, Dark Copper Marans AND, the variety I never knew I needed, BLUE Copper Marans.
While I know that I mentioned potentially being interested in breeding some chickens, i was blown away by this genorousity. The only fears I have now that I’m too nervous to ask as a rookie is if they are straight run or not? Am I going to have roosters? I have never handled roosters before and the thought makes me nervous!
Now I am off to the feed store for additional chick feed, bedding pellets, heifer feed, AND (as if the list wasn’t long enough) little zip ties to use as leg markers to keep all of the breeds separate. Since I plan to sell some of them down the road when they are ready to go into there forever coops, I need to make sure that I have all of their varieties correct.