Greetings homesteaders,
First of all, let's get to know each other quickly, since this is my first post in the community.
For myself, I would say that I am someone who spent half of my life in the countryside (where I grew up), half in the city, and now I have decided to return to where I came from - to the countryside.
Admittedly, getting to the circumstances, even though I somewhat secretly wanted it - be careful what you wish for!
There are two of us, and after the hustle and bustle of the city that we both experienced separately, we decided to start a decentralization project together.
We've been on the property for about three months, and we've already made the first moves, we've planted our first food, we've gotten rid of gas heating and switched to wood and old-fashioned wood burning stoves.
Simply we don't want to eat the poisons that are served to us in markets anymore, and I also don't want to pay for them.
So to say, government made me do it - I'll thank it later.
In the last year, the price of food has skyrocketed. So why should I fear that there will not be enough or that I can not afford myself fried egg or delicious cake when we already have great conditions, desires and will to take care of ourselves!?
In recent days we have been considering building a chicken coop. The current price of one egg is 0.17 cents, which may not sound too much as a number, but in practice it really is. On a weekly basis, we spend about 20 eggs, which is 3.4 euros x 4 weeks = 13.5 euros + they are not free range eggs.
Above all, the quality is terrible, the egg yolk is not yellow, but rather a pale yellow-green color, and as someone who grew up on home-grown food, I know how to tell the difference.
So today we sat down and designed our first chicken coop!
We have a huge grassy area and the chickens are known to love to graze. Along the way, they bump on some worms, and thus satisfy all their needs in order to regularly lay eggs. Of course, there must always be supplemental food, but for that it is enough to have corn in the grain, and any other cereal.
What we actually want is for the chicken house to be mobile (that is the missing part on the script), so that we can move it around the property, they also need a warmer and drier space, because the winters here are harsher and colder.
I learned about hens growing up is that they love heights, especially when they are laying eggs and going to sleep. Although they do not have the ability to fly, when they spread their wings they can jump up to a meter in height, we don't want them escaping out of the chicken coop because that would potentially endanger everything in the garden, even though they are very good collectors of bugs and pests, they can easily devastate everything that is juicy and green. Precisely because of this, and because of the stray dogs that can visit and serve themselves from time to time, the plan is to cover the entire construction with wire.
At the back, we designed an opening that will make it easier for me to collect the eggs and clean their space. Chickens are literally creatures that constantly eat something and constantly poop. Their excrement is acidic, for this reason it is not recommended as an organic fertilizer.
Diluted with hummus - maybe.
We've also seen some great ideas on the internet, like those tunnels that go from point A to point B, that's adorable to me, but we don't have that planned for now.
The initial number of chickens will be 8 + 1 rooster that will entertain them (blessed among women, so to speak). In our country, the most widely cultivated variety is Gallus domesticus, most often they are brown, but they can also be gray, better known as Amrok.
Rooster feathers have fantastic colors, and at the same time, we won't even need a alarm clock anymore.
According to my calculations, to get at least 5 eggs every day x 7 days = 35 eggs x 4 weeks = 140 eggs, in that case, I will finally be able to try all those recipes for cakes that contain at least 12 eggs each, then homemade mayonnaise (which I a d o r e), and recently I discovered right here on Hive how it is possible to dehydrate them!
In the future, I will not visit my friends with bought chocolates, but a nice wrapped package of homegrown eggs will make them smile.
What are your experiences with raising chickens? Are you for or against? Would you like to grow them if you had the chance?
I almost forgot to thank my dear darling @oks2crypto for project designing, and for all the changes I made at the last minute, he even had to add the handle on the door.😏
Looking forward to share our journey around here, till the next reading!
