Chicken Math

“Surprise, Husband! I bought more chickens!”

The saying as a chicken owner is “chicken math” and boy, does that ring true in my house. We said a fond farewell to our dear roos recently, mostly because there were three of them and they were loud and a little “too enthusiastic” with the hens…who they were also related to and it felt icky to bear witness to. It was the neighborly thing to do, and while we gave our best try to rehome them to farms in the area, other seasoned chicken owners, homesteaders and the like, we had no luck. It was a very sad day when I brought all three boys to our local humane society but as of the writing of this post, I can happily report that two of the three have been adopted.

While it was so sad to say goodbye to the boys, the absence of testosterone in the coop was magical! The yard was quiet, peaceful, less-tense, the stress was low, the hens were happy…all wonderful things. So I jumped in and threw the “outside family” for a huge loop and created more chaos, as I am known to do. Really, it’s all Eric’s fault because he asked me to go to the feed store on my day off to get more chicken feed.

Clearly, he did this knowing it was chick season and of course was anticipating the arrival of new babies when he asked me to run this errand. And just as he obviously predicted, there were chicks in clear need of new homes. And I bought three of them.

At this point, you’re thinking “of course you bought three of them! You just had to say goodbye to your three roos and now need to balance out the flock with a few additional faces and personalities and it’s absolutely understandable that you would bring three tiny, sweet, fluffy little chicks home with you.” Well, yes and no. Yes because you are correct on all counts. But no because I had in fact, two additional chicks on hold at another feed store that would arrive in the coming days.

Eric did an amazing job at hiding his enthusiasm about our new babies but I knew he was just as excited as I was. His excitement about this was just expressed in more of an angry, standoffish manner than I expressed my excitement, but he loves the chicks just as much as I do. To further bolster his excitement about the new chicks, I came home with three more (instead of the intended two) and his enthusiasm was palpable! Hooray!

So, to circle back to the chicken math portion of our program:

Seven chickens minus three roosters equals four hens
Four hens plus three baby chicks equals an incomplete flock
An incomplete flock plus two baby chicks equals nine chickens total
Nine chickens total is a magic number but not even and so nine chickens plus one more is ten chickens which, if you think about it is not much more than the original seven and is a much more balanced and fuller flock full of many personalities and breeds! Everyone wins!

My heart is full, our flock is full, the big girls are apprehensive, and the babies are home! I am excited to share our chick-raising process with you! Please see other posts regarding housing chicks, chick care, introduction to the flock, etc. (all coming soon!) Don’t worry, more to come!