Backyard Poultry: How we did that

How we DID that...
Raising Backyard Poultry

The story of Greenery Ridge Fine Fowl
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2017 was the Year of the Rooster, or more specifically, the year of the “fire chicken”. Evidently, the stars were aligned and lighting the way for me to turn our farmette into Greenery Ridge Fine Fowl. My husband Alex saw it differently. He didn’t want me to have chickens at all. He grudgingly agreed a small group of hens in the spring of 2017. My chicken fever started in winter as I read exhaustively about breeds, coops, waste management and diseases, happily sharing my discoveries with Alex and planning for my 5 hens. His patience grew thinner and thinner until he snapped “Do what you want, just don’t tell me about it!”.

Unfortunately for him, I saw his withdrawal from chicken world as permission to invoke my inner farmer. Years of my high school Future Farmers of America training surged from its dormant slumber. Soon I had baby chicks emerging from 3 incubators and dozens of rare breed chickens hunting grasshoppers in the yard. I became certified as a poultry technician and started taking our beautiful, personable Seramas to shows. Alex has been generous of his time and talent despite his disinterest in chickens. He built several safe coops and runs to thwart the inevitable predators.

As time went on, we expanded into ducks, which are even more interesting than chickens and lay at least as well. We do not have a pond, but instead provide tubs and pans of water for their bathing and splashing.

They call it chicken math. If you plan for 2 chickens, you will end up with 5, because they are so awesome. If you plan for 8, you will end up with 20. As for me, when people ask me how many chickens I have, I generally do not have a number to give them. You can count them yourself at our website: http://www.toomanychicks.com