Hopefully this week you will see a couple of posts regarding the newest additions of chickens!  Today we are going to talk about why we chose chickens and show you where we started from!

First the kids have been steadily asking for additional pets for at least the last two years.   I am really not a fan of something that I know I am eventually going to end up totally caring for. We do have Rugar, Boston Terrier 13-year-old, but basically, I am only in charge of taking him to the groomer these days and an occasional trip outside.

Second need to know fact is that Matt does not like birds of any shape or fashion.  This is important because he has been a firm no in the past when asked about chickens. However, when Zach asked in May, he agreed without the only thing being he is not doing ANYTHING other than building a structure. He is not at all involved in the care!

So here are the reasons that we agreed to 6 hens…
1. It is a given fact that after no more than 2-3 months at best, I will become the one who is responsible for making sure they are cared for on a daily basis. With chickens at this point, they will be in pretty self-sufficient.  We will have purchased a large feeder that will need to be filled once a week and water will need to be filled every couple of days except in the winter, but I will deal with that as it comes.
2. Responsible pet ownership also includes making sure that they do not reproduce.  Our simple and best solution is that we only purchased hens.  This way we do not have to worry about any additional chickens.
3.. Chickens are the only pet that I know that produce anything that can be used. We will be getting eggs and we also will be using waste as part of composting.
4.Pets are expensive!  We have ended up spending approximately 2,000 on getting everything in place.

Here is where we started