I never thought I’d spend so much time thinking about poultry…
When we agreed to buy the ranch, I begin mentally preparing for the chickens. I bought books; I read blogs; I meticulously picked out the breeds I wanted. I read articles about why chickens should only eat organic feed (for the record, even I don’t eat all organic feed…). I read about all the ways predators can get to your flock. I read about parasites and natural worming vs. chemical worming. I started following Fresh Eggs Daily, Garden Betty, and DIY Diva, soaking up every last bit of chickeny knowledge they had to offer.
This is how I do things. Six years of higher Ed and a MA have made me a researcher by default.
Alternately, you could say I obsess.
Earlier this week, as I sat at a good friend’s table drinking coffee and watching her chickens out her picture window, I casually questioned between sips where she had had the good luck to find a blue laced red wyandotte hen…
My husband, a long-time equine professional, looked at me like I had sprouted wings and replied “I think you know more about chicken breeds than I do horse breeds…”
Researcher…
Obsessive…
But it was last month, when I drug home a Jetta-trunk load of mismatched feeds bags (50lbs rolled oats, 50 lbs cracked corn, 50 lbs black oil sunflower seeds, and about 10lbs millet) with the explanation that I was going to “mix my own chicken scratch,” my husband informed me that I was officially crossing the line between “chicken lady” and “crazy chicken lady.”
Of course, I had my reasons, one being that I felt like $11.00 a bag was too much to pay for the nutritionally-deficient scratch I was buying. On top of that, I had read wonderful things about the benefits of black oil sunflower seeds, and I wanted to add them to my hens’ diet. Also, somehow I thought it would be cheaper to mix my own, which would be true if I hadn’t added those sunflowers.
By the time I got everything mixed, I realized that I was paying about $2.00 more per 50 lbs of scratch, but the chickens seem to love it, and it’s undeniably more nutritionally dense than the generic stuff, so we’ll call it a win.
Even if it does, officially, make me a “Crazy Chicken Lady.”
Here’s to crazy chicken ladies! Great looking scratch by the way……. 🙂
Huzzah! (and thanks; the girls seem to like it)
All this makes me wonder: How did farmers survive and know what to feed their chickens back in the BC days. BC, of course, stands for Before Computers.
I’ll have to ask my grandparents…
There are all kinds of us crazy chicken/deer/squirrel – whatEVER kind of ladies out there! I’ve often thought about mixing my own feed too. I try to be price conscious, but in the long run if i know it’s better for the girls and they love it, what’s a little extra cost? 🙂
It’s pretty negligible really, and, as you say, the girls like it.
I’ve known for quite some time now that you are a crazy chicken lady. Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 😉 Beautiful basket of eggs!!
P.s. – loving the new website design!
Perhaps I’m just generally crazy.
I know a fabulous crazy chicken lady and she’s oodles of fun! Keep on keeping on!! 😂
The feed looks great. And look at those eggs; Oh my,. so beautiful. Now I must look up on Google a blue laced red Wyandotte
They’re stunning!
[…] around the pastures. They dust bathe. They eat kitchen scraps in addition to their feed and their homemade scratch. In short, they spend their day (and their lives) being chickens and doing chickeny […]