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.