For conversation sake and to help get my mind off all the political stuff... I'll share my chicken adventure. It started last year with just a few dozen chicks... I turned it into a full blown chicken farm now lol! I don't really know how many I have, but its a lot! I enjoy them, I sell fresh eggs as my side hustle and probably make just enough to buy their feed. The kids help me, we hatch some too, its fun and educational. We turned 2 unused stalls in the barn into a large coop. I have 2 other coops on the side of our home. I researched tons and have learned so much! So much more goes into raising chickens than I ever imagined. We have a good time with it and getting really cool colored eggs and neat chicks. I have some seriously mixed breeds and have some pure breeds I keep separate. But all my chickens are spoiled and have giant coops with huge runs to free range around safely. Here's a few pics to enjoy...

Wow!  some pretty chickens!!!  thats a cool touch on putting farm fresh on your eggs!!!!

Thank you! I found those cute stamps online and I stamp all my eggs that go out to customers. It's fun and they really love it. I go to great lengths to get my hens the very best feed I can.  I chose an all natural hi protein feed that has essential oils and organic herbs in it.. plus I feed them extra fresh herbs on the side. The taste in the eggs is amazing! People tell me these are the best eggs they've ever eaten. Makes me so happy to get that feedback and it drives me to keep it up and improving.  The ink on the stamps is 100% safe, basically food coloring. I order it in special for the eggs. My chickens also get a flake of alfalfa in their pens once a week.. the go bonkers over it! 

I want to buy eggs from you!!!! pm me where you from... I have a feeling you tooo far!

Fresh eggs taste so much better.  

Good for you.  We raised gazillions when I was a kid on the farm but they weren't for fun.  It was all about fried chicken and scrambled eggs, mom and dad trying to feed a family of eight.

Mostly Leghorns for eating and the hens were a wide variety of colors.

If you ever get a chance to see the very old movie The Egg and I, you'll love it.

People ask us all the time if we eat our chickens... no way!! I bought them strictly for eggs and they get to live out their lives here in peace lol! I still have ol red, she is pushing 9yrs old this year... Rhode Island red, she hasn't layed an egg in probably 2 years plus... but she's as healthy as can be and she keeps the newbies in line and if I have an aggressive rooster, she will put him back in check in a hurry!  She just wanders around, eats lots of grasshoppers and rules the roost. I'm definitely going to check out that movie, thank you!! 

What breed are those light gray ones?

Yeah, I'm in Belton, TX

They are actually lavender orpingtons. I absolutely love them! By far my most consistent layers. Nice big brown eggs. I bought a rooster with that group because I planned on breeding them. I'm actually getting ready to put some of their eggs into my incubator and see how big boy (Bruce) did in there. This morning I put in an order for Chocolate orpingtons! I'm super excited to get my hands on those.

I LOVE chickens!!!! We only have a few now but I am planning on adding to our flock. If I didnt have horses, I would definitely have more chickens!!!

I love your pictures!!!!!!  :) 

Renew Gold makes an Certified Non-GMO, Certified Organic poultry feed that is complete. No additional supplements needed. No crap or fillers.  Just add water and a chicken. We manufacture this in Texas and distribute it through Manna Pro dealers. Any independent dealer that sells Renew Gold can get it, with the exception of Tractor Supply. Some good promotions are just starting on this new label. Organic Renew Gold Poulrty Complete. Mini pellet, no soy to produce a low estrogen egg, High omega 3. Details at renewgold.com 

Win

Another perk of having chickens around my place is superb natural pest control! I literally have zero spiders, scorpions and other creepy crawlies because my chickens eat all of them! They also will gang up on smaller snakes and kill them. Here's one of my young australorp roosters running around with a mouse he found and killed

That is great to know! I went thru several feed trials, pretty much all the big names and just wasn't that thrilled with the egg quality, or my chickens flat out refused to eat. I'm close to 200 chickens....  if not maybe a little over lol! Chicken math got me... when covid first hit and food was hard to come by briefly, I ordered from Chewy.com and I got Kalmbach delivered. My chickens went crazy over it and started producing really quality hard shelled clean eggs and we noticed they were really shiny with bright red combs and wattles. We just stuck with it ever since. I have it delivered by chewy because no one local carries it, unfortunately.  I feed the start right to my babies and the 17% natural crumble to my laying hens.. I also feed their 20% flock maker crumble to my juveniles. No medicated feed. I'm a huge Bluebonnet fan, but my chickens would rather starve themselves than eat bluebonnet chicken feed... i was so surprised because it smells amazing but they let it sit in the feeders for weeks and weeks without touching it. They will kinda eat Purina but I was getting too many soft or thin shelled eggs... I don't want to have to add in extra supplements. I always joke I have the pickiest of chickens ... the kalmbach smells just like Italian seasoning, I thought they may not like that but they went nuts over it. I'm going to ask my local feedstore about the RG since they are dealers... I'd be interested in trying it on a pen or 2

It was really difficult to make a certified Organic formula that provided all the nutritional needs without using soy. I originally did this for a commercial farm that wanted to sell certified organic eggs that were low in estrogen. Since almost every poultry feed is soy based, that created a challenge. For people trying to limit the amount of estrogen in their diet, but still wanting to eat eggs or use them in recipes, this is a nice choice. We also use coconut in the formula and achieve some flock health goals by doing so. I see so many flock owners making a complicated brew of supplements to add to cheap poultry feed. If you look at the total, end of the month bill, this is a really nice way to go. Some Renew Gold dealers are not aware of this product yet, but it is available to them if they ask. 

I tried a local non gmo, corn and soy free feed in the beginning and really liked it, the chickens liked it as well.. unfortunately I started getting bags that would be full of weevils. One store blamed it on being non gmo, and I tried another store in a completely different town and those bags were full of weevils too. After numerous attempts with the feed company to get it fixed and get me some new bags, they wouldn't make good on it so I dumped the bags out. I don't mind a bug here n there but these bags were crawling with them... I even had video and sent it to the company,  I never got a response or solution. I can't spend $30 plus on a bag of feed that has weevils eating a bunch of the nutrition out of it... a lot of the feed would be light and dried out. Was a shame because I really liked the concept of being soy and corn free. 

It's a 1947 film Fred McMurray and Claudette Colbert about a city girl who married a country guy raising chickens.   There's also a book and one chaper is labeled I Learn to Hate even Baby Chickens (from the city girl's perspective) which made me laugh because I've seen what baby chicks can do to one they pick on and it ain't pretty.

I was also watching The Incredible Dr. Pol marathon and saw folks bringing their pet chickens in, very much loving them like any other pet.  Had to admit I was never interested in a chicken as a pet as much as I love critters.  One woman with a blind hen which was very sick with what they called a water belly was crying and in fear of losing her.  They drained the red hen's tummy and she felt much better, probably a quart of water, poor thing.

I've seen some crazy ailments with my chickens! I've been able to save some and sadly have lost some or humanely culled if we couldn't fix. I even had 1 chick die, like stop breathing, and was unresponsive... I put her in a box and was going to take her out to dispose of it and while putting on my shoes, she jumped right up and started peeping lol! She's a full grown hen now but that was just too weird! My kids were scared of that one... something about a zombie chicken...  my deal around here is prevention! I do get my babies vaccinated for mareks and coccidiosis just because my numbers. And I feed them well, keep waters and coops very clean and dry...I use a lot of lime and DE in their dusting baths for mites and I do use dried herbs in their nesting boxes ... they like the lavendar and mint the best .... keeps the coops fresh smelling. (My chickens are spoiled)

Funny you bring this up.  I think my chickens diet is 50% renew gold that my horses drop on the ground.  

our chickens eat horse feed and show calf feed almost exclusivly 

I do occasionally throw in a few handfuls of calf manna to them,  they love it. They also hang around my horses feed bucket when it's feeding time, they pick up anything he drops. And he does have to fight them off his alfalfa. They are relentless!

Your Chickens are so pretty and healthy looking, they can be lots of fun to have around.. but can be a pest too, lol, I love my chickens most of the time, I dont like them hanging around my horses to much, I dont like them trying to get into the feed tubs while my horses are eating that has cause a few problems..I was having to check the feed tubs befor I fed because the hens would lay their eggs in there and poop to, Now I dont have that problem thank goodness I did not like them pooping in the feed tubs. I have about 8 laying hens and have not bought store bought eggs in about 10 years now. I'm always giving eggs away to friends or my husband customers.. About every other year I'll get some chicks to raise to replace the older hens..

You are doing a good job Chicken lady..

I hate chicken poop!!! I have to cover my hay with a tarp or else they will set all say and just poop on it.. once they all get a little bigger they will all be in the large back pen we built and they won't have access to the hay area. I have a few that jump the fence occasionally but I'm hoping they will mostly stay in the back area... its really big and has lots of trees and room to run around .. and lots of sand pits for dust baths. Right now, they are just kinda all over the place because I'm too soft and don't like the pecking order stuff lol!. Chickens are vicious! 

yep, the poop really sucks, I finally got all my hens to stay around the house, I think the coyotes had a hand in this too, the ones that liked staying around the horse pens got picked off by the coyotes and the younger hens got the hint that the house is safer then trying to eat my horses feed. but every once in a while I'll find a egg and poop in one of the feed tubs.. The hens really like my hay bales too and that really got to be a freaking pain, but now since they stay up by the house its all good now. BUTTTTT they like pooping by the back door, WHYYYYYY oh WHYYYYY do they have to poop there, lol..

I have never had chickens before, but maybe this year!  I'm so afraid they will die!

You'd be surprised they are actually pretty good at taking care of themselves once they get past the chick stage. We provide safety with fences and coops that get locked up at night and just make sure nothing can dig under. My biggest threat to my chickens seemed to be neighbors loose dogs or stray dogs. We are still in the process of building more fence since our neighbors won't do anything to keep their dogs off our property... even after I asked nicely after the first attack and then not so nicely after the next one. My dogs will bark like crazy if they see those dogs so I just run out and yell, throw rocks, or use a BB gun to scare them off. My chickens know to run back to the barn when my dogs begin to bark.. 

Would you believe someone actually "dumped" a red rooster and three hens on the road in front of our house.  I tried and tried to catch them but the coyotes were way more successful than I was.

That's a really nice set up it seems you have!  I love the "Farm fresh" stamp and those grey hens are pretty!  I have a love/hate relationship with chickens...love the eggs but those birds poop more than any animal!  I don't keep many around but I do like to try new breeds when I can.  My favorite is by far the Hy-Line Browns.  Those are some egg laying fools and so docile.  

Way back when there was a show on television called Here's Hollywood where they spoke to actors in their home setting.  Henry Fonda had a coop of chickens for one reason only and that was to fertilize his garden with their droppings.  He said that was the best fertilizer in the world.  Funny how you remember dumb stuff like that.

We used lots of chicken poop in our garden last year and it was great... until the chickens discovered the actual garden. They ate almost every single cucumber and zucchini I had and my tomatoes.  That was the first year they had ever bothered our garden. We moved the garden far away for this year's attempt. Plus we put up more fencing to keep them away from certain areas.  They use to just scratch around in the garden and not mess with the vegetables. Now they have a taste for fresh veggies lol! I planted a few herbs for them to help themselves to near their coops... lavendar, thyme and they love the lemongrass. Oh, they bout wiped out my husband's chili tepin bush and they picked off all my jalapeños and Serrano plants. 

Wow, I am jealous!! We have 11 of them running around, and got 3 eggs this week. The first eggs since august!
Now we only got 8 of them (light Sussex) (actually 10, but 2 died...) last November, and they where pullets so we knew it would take a bit off time for them to start laying. 
The other 3 are Australorps and they are not the strongest.... we've had Rhose Island reds for years, the last one passed away early last year and she was at least 10 yo... so 2 years ago we got 8 of the Australorps but, they don't lay when it's hot (welcome to Tx...), they don't lay when it's cold... they don't lay when it's windy (again welcome to Tx...) and for some reason they just up and die.... so we are down to 3 of those, and when we brought the new group they stopped laying eggs all together.....

I do hope the new girls start giving us eggs soon! No fun when you have them running around and still have to buy eggs.... they don't taste half as good as fresh freerange eggs!

My black Australorps have been pretty hearty ... they are still laying despite this crummy weather we've been having. They are some of my favorites. Very friendly and docile. I bought some blue australorps too. I bought a little australorp cockerel last order to keep them coming. I know for sure what breed I will not get again and those are silkies! So cute when they are chicks, but man, when they get older they are kinda ugly lol! And mean ... I ended up with 4 stinkin roosters. I have 1 left that we haven't culled because he pretty much stays to himself and doesn't cause any problems. Truth is, I have more roosters than I need but as long as they stay nice and don't act a fool, they can stay. They offer good protection for the hens.  I've got 4 really pretty Black laced red wyndotte roosters that are still very young so I'm trying to decide what to do with them still. I've got 1 neat looking brahma/ easter egger cross rooster too, I hatched him out in my incubator with 3 other pullets. They are really cool looking birds that will lay either green, pink or blue eggs. I've some some marans coming and im super excited to get those dark chocolate eggs! 

That sounds so cool! You really have a good thing going there!

We don't have a rooster, just the girls. They are pretty docile, but not veyr tame. Although they do come running whne I go out to feed. Maybe we should get a couple more, or even a rooster, but we'd need a larger area for them then and we really don't have room for that.

I do love the look of silkies when they are younger. Didn't realize they don't stay cute.

We had a guinea for a while that my friend gave us. She had 2 but 1 got killed by her dog, so she felt bad for it to be all by herself.... OMG! They are LOUD!! She would screech at anything moving! Leaves, trees, dogs, horses, blades of grass..... lol.... and it sounded like a rusted windmill!! Horrible! It wouldn't have been so bad if she stayed in the pen, but she started to escape and run around the yard..... and screech right underneath the bedroom window from sunup!!! Many times I had to stop my husband from wringing her neck.... lol.... 

Unfortunately she not only escaped the pen, but she would roam the neighbors yards also. And 1 of the neighbor's dogs got her. So that was the end of our guinea adventure.....

i love my yard birds we had dommicker and game hens loved the eggs  but then we did not have a barn or much and the roosted in trees

those are greaat  those pecan trees in the back ground

There's pecan trees all around the property... we love them! So they attract the crows and we discovered the crows keep the hawks away from our chickens. I think over the last 5 years, I've lost 2 chickens to a hawk attack. The crows started increasing and the hawks stay away. The crows don't bother the chickens at all. They are a welcome ally here! That entire pasture use to be pecan trees, I'd say about half of them died because of a crop dusting plane was spraying on a very windy day... also killed some of my new red oaks that we had planted. We are surrounded by crop fields on all sides 

I went thru the guinea phase too... talk about adorable babies!!! They were so cute,  I picked up 6 lavendar guineas from my feed store.... little did I know what kind of lunatics they'd turn out to be! Holy cow.. and LOUD . They were so annoying.. I gave them away

I'm addicted to hatching them out, then complaining that I have too many chickens, lol.   I love my frizzles though!

That's one I've not had yet, frizzles. I haven't seen any locally. I had a few polish when tsc had a straight run bin.. I ended up with a cockerel and a pullet. Sadly they didn't make it.. but I had heard they are kinda fragile birds. I've got 6 cochins that I really like.. 5 white and 1 partridge. The 5 white females are in with my lavendar rooster so I'm putting a few of those eggs in my bator too ... wonder what I'll get???!! A purple cochin? Or a white orpington?? Lol! 

My frizzles are a product of backyard breeding gone wild, lol!  I only wanted a few laying hens several years ago, just to get fresh eggs.  I went to Tractor Supply and they had a minimun of 6 chicks.  Then my daughter went to a different Tractor Supply and bought 6 more tiny cute chicks from the bantam tub.  There ended up being 2 silkies (that I gave away) and 2 frizzle hens in that bunch.  So the frizzles I have now are mixed with other breeds, these are 4th generation mixed chickens. I keep giving away chickens, I got up to 70 at one time, now I have about 25.  LOL! 

They are so cute! I love baby chicks. That's probably how I ended up with 200 lol! Whoops! 

That familiar sweet sound of baby chicks in my back living room is here again! Since I technically ordered these last year, that doesn't count as this year's chickens right??

If I'm ever reincarnated as a chicken, I hope I get to go to your house.   

I got chickens last year as a covid stress buy. I was terrified of chickens but thought it would be a good idea to get some lol. I built a huge chicken mansion for them to live and I free range during the days when I'm home and don't have to worry about chasing them in before I go to work at night. They eat everything! I trade eggs for veggies and leftover bread and stuff. I use the flock plenty app to keep track of expenses and how many eggs. I have 14 hens that since sept when I got the app,have laid 1464 eggs! I also sell some to girls at work but it doesn't quite cover their costs. According to my app, my eggs cost me .83 per dozen. I have 7 isa browns, 3 barred rock, 3 olive eggers, and a Welsummer. My isa browns are egg laying machines! I plan on getting some that lay blue eggs this spring! 

So stinking cute!!!!!

For little varmits that can peck the life out of each other given one little spot of blood. 

I had no idea there was an app! I actually don't think I want to break my expenses down lol! That'll probably be depressing. Although I'm selling out of eggs almost every week it seems. I have a mess of Isa browns but they are still about 3 months from laying.  

Haha! That's what my mom always says 

Oh gosh yes, they are brutal little things.. I always say, God forbid I fall off my horse and get seriously injured out there, my chickens would probably feast on me! They are tiny raptors. I have 1 big hen in particular,  we call her Karen, she's constantly picking at me, like follows me around squawking  and trying to peck my legs when I stand still... you go to pick her up and she runs like her life depends on it.. super annoying bird. 

Well, I lost 1 chick yesterday,  while I was at the vet with my horse, my daughter called she was trying to save it... sometimes things just happen... shipping is hard on them, and they are quite fragile that young. So hopefully the rest will be ok.. so far so good. 

In the spring when I go into the post office I hear the chicks in the back room.  I had no idea they were actually shipped to the post office then picked up by Atwoods or whoever.  I had to ask what for sure this was because I thought it was birds in the building.  The gal who told me about the chicks said once because they didn't know any better they left them in the cold and they all died.   

We have had chickens for about 15 years now...love having them around.  I too  sell my excess eggs and roosters who can't get with the program.  I don't eat mine but will sell them for the soup pot when they get 3-4 years old.  I have a few that will stay until they die but usually get a few chicks each year to raise for eggs.

Sir Hop A Long below  Black Copper Marans roo. below.

Ahhhh yes... there is a risk when shipping but most of the time it works pretty good... I only had 1 time where they were delayed a day.  But most I get within 24/48 hours after hatch and ship... chicks can live off the yolks they absorb for 3 days without food or water after they hatch.  its usually the heat or freezing Temps that kill them when shipping. I try to plan accordingly to the weather. Funny thing, there was this post a while back on a chicken page (yes, it's similar to this one, but for chickens) and this person was arguing that we all shouldn't buy chicks that are mailed in by the post office, that it was cruel to ship chicks... and we needed to be like her, she bought all her chicks at the feed stores or tractor supply.... lol!!! Oh boy... people are nuts in the chicken world.... and the pure breed chicken people that show birds... my goodness.. you think there are breed snobs in the horse world???!!! These chicken people are probably some of the worst!! One lady told me all my chickens were junk....utility quality birds .... I had to look that up to figure out she was insulting me lol!!! 

Love Marans! Love those deep dark colored eggs 

I love them too...fairly laid back birds.  I just wish they were better layers so I could have the whole flock as one breed.  I have several people at work that buy every egg I can produce for eating.  Here is most of my girls...all the black ones are Marans the rest are your regular brown egg layers.

Much to my surprise when I walked into my feedstore and saw that they had the Renew Gold poultry feed in the store! However,  the $50 price tag on a 30lb sack, took the wind out of my sails quickly... way out of my price range unfortunately.  Boo! 

Wowz, Thank you but no thank you, to rich for my blood.

Yep mine too. I don't know who they think will be able to afford that. I can buy a 50lb bag of The H & H Old fashioned layer that's non GMO, corn and soy free for $32 ... if only they worked out that pesky weevil issue I had with them last year. It was a great feed and my chickens loved it. I'm looking for a soy free feed for my personal chickens eggs... 

There is no inexpensive way to make the highest quality product in the market. Since I can't tell a store what to sell our products for, You may want to try another store. One point to remember though, no other supplements required. Just water and a chicken. If you want the highest quality egg, from the healthiest bird, this is your product. For people who know the length we go to for the highest level of ingredient quality this is your feed. Most organic formulas are made from waste junk ingredients and not nutritionally complete. If you have a lot of birds that you sell eggs to the public from, this may not be your feed. If you provide eggs for your own use, there is a real difference here that is simply not available anywhere else. 
Win

Win, did you say that TSC won't be able to carry this chicken feed? I know this particular feed store use to charge an astronomical amount for RG and the SR. until tsc started carrying both. Then the price became the same as it is at TSC. Why is it that some places cannot carry certain products of a line and others can, even if they both offer that particular brand? I never understood that .. unless it's some big industry secret.. I was really looking forward to trying this RG poultry as I have an issue with Soy and can't always enjoy our eggs without suffering the consequences. But I just can't justify that price tag .. I'm sure it's a wonderful feed. I do not have another feed store close by that has RG, just this one and then TSC. I see that Nutrena offers a soy free version of their Naturewise line but reading the reviews, people weren't happy with the fishy taste ... (yuck) there are plenty of non gmo, or organic feeds available but pretty much all of them still contain soy.  I found another one without soy but they replaced that with peanut meal and I'm deathly allergic to peanuts so that's a no go on that one. Processed plant protein products... is that another word for soybean? 

Tractor Supply is taking no new items this year because of remote working at their main offices. I would hope that this feed gets a spot there when they start adding items again. As to who can carry our products in your area, any independent feed store can get them with an order to their normal supplying distribution system where they get everything else in their store. As to price. $50 is nuts, but it is very illegal for us to tell any store how to price a item. By law, we simply can not do that. Chewy may be the future for this. The feed is unique in quality and effectiveness. You will not believe the difference in how your birds look, how the shell integrity improves, and how healthy the eggs are. 

I have laying hens too, so I'm going to google and see who might carry this feed in my area, I just wish the bags were bigger, when you have more then a few hens the 30 lbs bags wont go very far..

Hopefully they'll get to carry it soon. I know I'd probably pay around the 30-35 mark for it for my 21 chickens I have stashed to the side for our personal use. But I wouldn't be selling those eggs for $2 a dozen, that's for sure! I've been searching for a soy free feed. I did pick up a bag of the Nutrena hearty hen today that is a soy free pellet.. I spent some time researching it and reading more reviews.. a few people mentioned fishy taste and I don't understand that because there is no fish oil in it.. looks like the soy was replaced with canola and flax. I can't make myself go back to the H & H feed because of the amount of bugs that were always in the bags... obviously a mill issue... they never got back to me or offered to replace the bags I had to burn that were crawling with weevils from 2 different feed stores. I'm going to keep my eye out for the RG becoming available at other places because. I'd love to try it. The ingredients list is impressive. 

I got a polka dot egg today from my olive egger! That's a first for me out here. Just wanted to share .. this is 2 days worth of eggs! They are on a roll.