My Experience Raising Backyard Chickens

Britnie here….

So I got a wild hair that sprung up from my head one day and decided that I wanted to be a farmer. Actually, it was more of a realization. I’ve always loved being outside and I’ve always loved animals, vegetables and dirt.

In my city life, I was immersed into the nightlife. I made a living as a successful Bartender and even started a Staffing company that I learned a lot from. I would say that the company was successful in a lot of ways as I was in high demand and that felt great!

But I got burnt out.

I hated the loud music and the hustle and bustle of the business. I won’t even talk about the competitiveness of it all and honestly, I eventually became discouraged.

But that’s another story for another day.

After having my daughter, I began to reassess my future and dug deep into what really brought me joy. The answer that came forward was Nature.

My family has a background in farming. My grandfather was born and grew up on his own land, 40 acres, and maintained that land for 80 plus years with horses and food growth. When I was a child, he would take me out to our farm and I never wanted to leave.

So fast forward many years later, I decided that farming was the route I wanted to go! I was introduced to the owner of BonTon Farms in Dallas, TX and was eager to find a way to be apart of the farming business. So I volunteered on their 40 acre farm in Balch Springs, TX to learn what farming was all about.

I eventually decided to move out of the major city and found a nice little home in far East Texas with a large backyard. I really wanted to experience waking up in the country to chickens running around and a rooster crowing. The idea of it all was blissfully intoxicating!

I bought my first batch of baby chicks from a local farmer and brought them home with mama.

Here they are in their little box!

I started them off on baby chick feed and for the most part, they seemed pretty happy. I had to change the newspaper daily because they pooped A LOT!

They grew up pretty quickly but I was told by the farmer that they wouldn’t produce any eggs until they were about 6-8 months old.

When they were about 3 months old, I moved them outside into a little coop. Excuse the blurry photo!

I bought my 2nd batch of baby chicks right after-These were called Easter Egg Layers. And yes, their eggs do look like Easter Eggs. I learned about this breed of chickens back on the farm I volunteered on as I was in awe of the beautiful colored eggs they produced.

So in total I had 12 chickens! Eventually, I had to add to their little coop so that they could have more room but even this didn’t last long. I called up my aunt Traci and asked her to help me build a chicken run so my feather babies could roam. She is so awesome!

I did have some losses unfortunately. One of my chicks had Cross Beak. Cross beak is just like it sounds…her beak didn’t close and she was unable to get food in her mouth. I would fill up the feed bin really high so that she could scoop it into her mouth but sadly she was unable to eat. She died :-(.

I had another chicken who had a clogged crop. A crop is the part of the chicken that looks like their tummy. When they are full from eating, the crop extends a little bit. Clogged crop is when the chicken may have swallowed long grass or some other thing they pecked on and their crop swells to an abnormal size because whatever is in their crop is stuck. They begin to drool a lot because there is a fluid build up since they are unable to get whatever is stuck to pass down into their bodies. You can tip them over and try to spill out the excess fluid build up, keep them isolated for about12 hours without food, and hope that the crop problem resolves. Hers did not resolve and sadly she passed away as well :-(.

A new visitor…

Earlier in the year, I was awakened out of a deep sleep to the sound of a chicken cock-a-doodle-doodling. After the third cockadoodledoo, I got up to figure out why my chickens started making rooster sounds… because I didn’t have a rooster.

My mom was visiting for the weekend at the time and I went into the guest bedroom and asked her if she heard my chickens making strange noises. She gave me the most perplexed look and said , “Britnie, you know that is not a chicken making that sound. That has to be a rooster!”.

And my gosh it was.

I went outside to see a rooster strutting in my backyard. Apparently, he was a stray who found himself a harem.

I chased the Rooster around with a broom to get him to leave. He never did. 6 months later, he is still here. He is my rooster now. His name is Bruce Lee.

Btw, all of my chickens have names. I have four Jessica Lees, Lucy Lui, Lucy Lee, Ming Lee, KoKo Lee, Amber Lee, and Athena Lee.

It took me a while to notice their differences as they grew up to name them.

So, my chickens began to lay eggs right at 7 months. I began to feed them lay crumbles and about a week later, their coop was filled with beautiful eggs! It was one of the happiest moments for me when I saw the glisten of light reflecting off of one of the eggs. When I investigated, I was thrilled to see that there were eggs everywhere! I felt like I had accomplished my first farmer task. Fruits of labor!

I began to let the chickens free roam because I wanted them to enjoy exploring and I had heard that they were great at pest control. They did pretty good at first with staying in the yard but eventually, they began to become curious about my neighbors yard. They’d never venture past my front yard but I did run into some problems with my neighbor.

The town that I live in is very small and the surrounding parts of the city are mostly rural. It is very common and likely that you will see chickens free roaming in someone's yard or on side of the road. I honestly did not think it would be a problem with my neighbor having a chicken or two stop by their yard sometimes. Well, most times. Lol

I eventually started to receive complaints from the authorities that my neighbor was upset that my chickens were eating his rye seeds and he even threatened to eat them! I was honestly hurt that my neighbor didn’t just talk to me first as I would have been understanding.

I was still understanding despite that and started keeping chickens in their run.

And eventually my neighbor began to complain about the rooster crowing from 3:30AM until about 5AM. I’m still not sure how I am going to resolve that because crowing is what roosters do. I can hear other roosters nearby crowing as well.

So in summary, the journey has been very fulfilling and a great learning experience. I look forward to the day where I am a full fledge farmer who grows food for the community.

Until next time, see ya!