Does anyone raise chickens here and use them as a way to study different subjects in homeschool? I'd be curious about your experiences, recommendations, concerns, resources, etc... We're thinking of doing this as a family. Wrote an blog article about it on my blog (will publish 3/16 Wed, 9 am) and have a page with links. http://www.thosecrazyhomeschoolers.blogspot.com I'm wanting to blog our progress and decision, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
We have talked about raising chickens and a few other critters for school (and food ) but have so far decided not to. We have coyotes here, and they are usually very very attracted to chickens. We don't want them drawn into our yard where our children would also be in danger. We have 10 acres, and have thought of penning them on some of the land not right near the house, but it would require clearing it and I'm not ready to get rid of my woods. I think one of the biggest things is to think of where you live, and if you would be breaking any town ordinances or angering neighbors.
I've only raised chickens on a hobby farm. I still keep a dozen or so around at all times. I just love them. There are lots of opportunities for learning - everything from the requirements of care to breeding! One book I always suggest to people getting into the business of any animal raising are Storey's Guides. In this case, "Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens" available from Amazon for around 12.50. It is a wealth of information and would be great for assisting your education efforts as well! My ds, especially, was into the fowl. We at one time had turkeys, ducks, geese and chickens. And he ended up raising, breeding and showing fancy pigeons. He built their coop (along with an adult's help) and bought and bred and showed them. If you are in or join 4-H they learn a lot about the different breeds and there are a lot of references available if you ask. Then they can show at your County Fair as well. One thing to be aware of with poultry these days was the big scare over diseases. Whatever foul you buy, I would suggest being sure they are vaccinated (even day old chicks) or having them vaccinated after you get them. It only costs around a dollar a chick and is well worth it, IMO. Actually, if you have Tractor Supply around you, their chicks came vaccinated this year and are quite reasonably priced. They also have a low 6-chick minimum. Right now I have 6 of them cheeping in my kitchen in a cardboard box where they've been living for the past week. It IS time for a bigger box, though! They grow soooo fast! I would recommend one other thing - get a catalogue, like Murray McMurray's for example, to see a variety of breeds and what each breed is for and how they produce. I love my chickens! If I can be any help at all, let me know! Here's a site with lots of good ideas, however, they are more for small flocks: backyardchickens.com
I've lost two flocks in the past couple of years, so we gave up on chickens. But we did enjoy them while we had them. I had the idea that they would be so educational, and then discovered chickens are only fascinating as a school subject for about 5 minutes. Once you've seen 20 chicks hatch, it just loses something!LOL. It was good for teaching the kids responsibility and the pay off for hard work, since the kids sold the eggs and split the profit. So I would do it again,( if we didn't have a wild dog problem)for the eggs, but I wouldn't do it for educational reasons.
We raise 4-H chicks every year & they are educational & teach responsibility. (Along with every other critter in our neck of the woods. We are THE funny farm.:lol: We dairy farm for a living also.) At our 4-H meetings we are just beginning to study chickens in various ways. Embryology, candling the eggs to watch chick grow before hatching, judging eggs for grade & quality, judging chickens for good layers &/or for show birds. Learning parts of the egg, parts of the chicken. Reproduction, fertilized eggs vs unfertilized, sitting hens. Breeds of chickens, colors of eggs, the way differences in feeding affects the laying hen's shell(hard & doesn't crack easily or fragile & beaks too easy) etc... You get the picture! The possibilities are endless. If you're not involved with 4-H maybe you could still get info from them on studies to do on chickens & eggs. Great thing about chickens is you don't have to have much space, money, or time to be a successful chicken farmer. If 4-H isn't possible for you, try yourlocal farmers co-op. Let me know if I can help. drinkmilk7@gmail.com Blessings!
You all have such wonderful ideas. We are in the middle of a small town and I think have regulations of 6 or less birds. We'll see on that though. We're zoned agricultural. I have not joined the local 4-H. I will have to check on that as well. I think if we do chickens, we won't do them from eggs. I prefer to just do the chicks but who knows. Maybe we'll start with chicks and then as we get our feet wet we can order a couple eggs to raise. I need to look for instructions on making a homemade incubator. If anyone blogs about their chicken farming, give me your blog address and I'll add it to my chicken farming page. http://thosecrazyhomeschoolers.blogspot.com/p/chicken-farmers.html
We raised chickens for many years, until Handsome started to get sick then we finally got rid of them. We raised them for show, for sale, and for eggs. Out of all the chickens we raised, coyotes killed a few throughout the years. We have always had dogs running around and the coyotes did not come in our yard when the dogs were out. Granted, they were large dogs. Coyotes will use small dogs as toothpicks. LOL We won may awards at different fairs and contests. Ems learned about breeding, feeding, development, and much more. Competitions also helped her learn to be a good sport and be happy whether we won or not. I was going to start raising chickens again, just a few this time, but never got around to doing it. Maybe this year.
We usually keep around 6-8. My youngest got the "education of a lifetime" last year when one of ours had a prolasped uterus (or whatever you would call that in a chicken) we tried to save her by following some instructions our 4-H agent gave us. I can't believe we actually did what we did that day. The hen died, but now dd thinks she might want to be a vet. It has been a great lesson in entreprenuership as well.
We currently have about 40ish chickens. Hubby is obsessed LOL We unschool, but my kids are getting pretty good about knowing different breeds and what the difference is between them (which can be as simple as the type of comb they have I think-I dunno-that's hubby's department) But hubby teaches them all sorts of stuff about chickens, care, breeds, my 7 year old can catch a chicken easier/quicker than I can. Of course we hatch eggs (there's some in the incubator as we speak....uh...type) We kill and eat a few here and there-we've used them for anatomy lessons. We love having chickens. They know different breeds are bred for different things, they know some lay eggs at different times, they know they lay different size/color eggs, etc
We have 15 right now. They are fun, a mess, and a little educational. The kids do learn from them, but not like if you did a unit study on chickens. And that kind of learning would last a month or so. But they learn lots of "life" lessons from them. Like where food comes from, and that it not a good idea to name your chickens you are going to eat. There is the tragic heartbreak when one of the favorite dies. Watching eggs hatch is cool for a little while then it wears off. There is the economic aspects of teaching the kids that you have to have cost ( feed, bedding etc) then the income (selling eggs, chicks, prize money) , and the cost of time to take care of them as well. But that happens kind of like a side line. We don't sell our eggs, but give them away instead. Because we don't need the money, and we love to see the recipients eyes light up when we give them the eggs. I think that teaching the kids the joy of giving is worth so much more then the small amount we would make off of selling the eggs. We have our chickens as a just in case. If something happens (we are self employed) we will always have food to eat. They free range, so we wouldn't have to feed them.
I was in a hurry and posted quick this morning but came back this afternoon to read the other replies- funny story-my 7 year old told some older guy who has chickens that you can feed chickens oyster shells to make the shells on the eggs harder-the guy didn't believe him-but it's true! LOL
Oh, oh....now you started the funny stories! Here's mine.... When my ds was about 8 (I won't tell you how many years ago this was, but quite a few ), we had both meat birds and our egg layers. We also always kept at least two roosters. You want at least two roosters. Only one may become aggressive toward people - they can be feisty! So two they will take out there aggression on each other. The "pecking order" thing is really true in chickens! Anyway, I regress.... My ds was 8 and he was the "birdie" in our family. He loved anything with feathers. Well, one of the meat birds broke a leg. As you raise chickens you'll find this is rather common with the heavy meat breeds - they grow too fast for their bones. Well, my son actually nursed this bird through for weeks until butchering day. We searched high and low for that stoopid crippled bird. Couldn't find it anywhere. Turned out my ds had hidden it so we wouldn't butcher it. Of course, we had to, because the bird couldn't survive on its own. I felt so bad for ds. It was something akin to shooting your own animal when it has to be put down. It was a hard, hard lesson to learn. But one we all laughed about years later. Somehow, I don't think he laughs about it to this day, though.
I second the Storey's guide and backyardchickens.com On BYC site, you can search for how to make a homemade incubator (I think they refer to it as a chickchick bator or something like that). We built one and successfully hatched several. They were unfortunately almost all roosters, so we prefer buying from the farm store.
Thanks so much to everyone for their replies! It's been very informative reading your responses. About how quickly do they start laying eggs if you get them from chicks? I'm thinking several months but I didn't know. I thought of getting a couple pullets to have some layers sooner but didn't know if they would pick on or kill the chicks. Do you all winter your chickens or get rid of them before the winter? We've discussed an indoor coop in the basement during winter. Think that might be the best. Any thoughts or ideas to share on that?
