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Posted: 8/11/2007 8:11:51 PM EDT
[#1]
No Roosters?? Kind of sexest isn't it? How you going to get an egg?
Which came first....The Egg or The Rooster? 
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Posted: 8/11/2007 9:25:28 PM EDT
[#2]
This is a techinical forum -- that animal sex stuff belongs in GD. I would suggest Delawares or Jersey Giants. Both have lots of meat and large eggs and aren't completely nuts like battery chickens these days. Delawares in particular just seem to hang out and watch the day go by. That's what you want, because some breeds will roam. |
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Posted: 8/11/2007 9:34:37 PM EDT
[#3]
I'd dress up with feathers, and throw the tea in the harbour! I'm such the redneck, I can't imagine a $25 (for even 1?) chicken license. My son has 43,000 turkeys right now; he doesn't pay a cent. Even if one is a gobbler! Consider getting rabbits, they'll lay about the same number of eggs over the Winter without electric lighting! Me....I'd get a rooster, so would most of my neighbors, just for the confrontation......but, nobody who knows who I am would come around here! They once proposed an ordinance about parking trucks in front of your house; I organized some guys and we contacted, or left a printed windshield flyer on every truck in the township. Next monthly meeting 700 people showed up with a properly knotted-up noose & a snare drum. Made up a chant that rhymed w/ truck! The recording secretary took some kind of a kicking-seizure fit. They couldn't get the ambulance in for the 700 trucks. Never mentioned again, over 4 years. You get the local laws you deserve!............Edit: +1 on the Delawares
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Posted: 8/12/2007 1:48:50 AM EDT
[#4]
[geico caveman] Uhhh...what? [geico caveman]  With that little amount of birds I would just pass. For that amount of effort and money you could just invest in some more stored food preps. |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 2:44:41 AM EDT
[#5]
you don't need a rooster to get a egg |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 3:33:48 AM EDT
[#6]
+1 |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 3:50:41 AM EDT
[#7]
You raise Cadbury bunnies???
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Posted: 8/12/2007 3:55:52 AM EDT
[#8]
Are they really going to check and make sure you got only the max number of 6?
They are not supposed to be allowed in town here, but the mexicans down the street from a friend have a bunch of them, they are always running loose and getting in the road, citys been called, nothing done |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 4:04:44 AM EDT
[#9]
I wouldn't deal with that BS, for a bunch of reasons.
$25 a year? With that and the cost of feed,you'd be better off buying eggs. Not to mention the cost of FREEDOM! Go with rabbits. Always my first recommendation anyway. |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 4:09:47 AM EDT
[#10]
Chickens aren't technically allowed here, but "exotic pets" are.
 We have seven Silkies, two Marans and two Guineafowl turning bugs and kitchen scraps into eggs and fertilizer.I think every family should have a "Victory Garden" and a few hens. I built a "stealth" coop under my deck, and people don't even realize they're there. See this thread: www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=10&f=17&t=561874 They wander around the yard when we let them out and have become remarkeably tame. If the eggs, meat, and bug control weren't enough, they're worth keeping just for the entertainment. The Guineafowl even like drinking my ice tea.   |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 4:08:17 PM EDT
[#11]
Yes , once again I have learned something on ARFCOM.
As long as there are chickens we will have eggs. If there aren't any roosters we will not have any chickens! 
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Posted: 8/12/2007 6:50:01 PM EDT
[#12]
Since you can't breed them, I'd get one of the hybrid kinds that lay a lot of eggs for little feed, like a cherry egger, black sex link, etc. No need to have a full size hen (and the accompanying feed bill) and not be able to breed them and get some $$$ back by selling other birds.
Get the most eggs for the least amount of your money. GR |
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Posted: 8/12/2007 9:35:47 PM EDT
[#13]
I'm with berdan, go egg the court house, demand the tards pull thier heads out of thier @sses. $25 one time fee, w/ $25 yearly tax. Sounds like pitch forks and torches time to me. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 5:19:47 AM EDT
[#14]
$25 a year? Yikes. I'll bet cats are still free too. 
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Posted: 8/13/2007 8:27:52 AM EDT
[#15]
.....Would you trust this man to fly you from New York to Paris? Even the birds he hangs out with can't fly! |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 8:37:45 AM EDT
[#16]
I bet you are right! 6 birds will give you a steady half dozen eggs a day for the first year.... after 3 years you will be lucky to get 3-4. Then its time to clean house and start over. If its cold in the winter you will need to keep their water from freezing.... and you will need some suplimental light in the winter also. I'd make a recording of a rooster crow and play it loud at sunup every morning! Then watch the town officers try to determine the sex of your birds? And dont forget pictures!!!!! |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 9:26:21 AM EDT
[#17]
I like this idea. A whole lot.
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Posted: 8/13/2007 11:05:18 AM EDT
[#18]
Not trying to hijack the thread but I have a related question that maybe some of you watching this can answer.
The wife and I inherited 9 chickens with the new house we bought. They live in a coop on the hill above the house. There is no power to the coop at this time. I am trying to figure out the best way to keep the water from freezing without running 120 AC wires to the house. I have considered 12 volt lighting but solar is a problem due to the tree cover. I would rather not cut the trees as they help keep the coop cool during the summer. The previous owners hung a heat lamp in the coop that I assume was fed with an extension cord. For safety reasons I really do not like that idea. I can bury some lines but that will take a while to get done. Our next batch of chickens due in about 2 weeks from McMurray will be housed in a chicken tractor that I am building. I am considering 12 volt options for that as well. But it will be in full sunlight most of the day. How do the Amish keep their chicken water from freezing? I have an Old German Baptist friend that I can ask but it will be a few weeks before I see him again. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 11:12:29 AM EDT
[#19]
You will probably find that they are home enough to rotate the waterer regularly. Thats what we have done when the power goes out. The lack of light cuts into egg production.... so does the lack of water... unless it is too extreme and then you wont have any more chickens. Give them warmish water and add a little cider vinegar to it and it will be OK for a good chunk of the day. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 11:22:27 AM EDT
[#20]
I keep a half dozen chickens. It isn't bad. Mine are in confinement and do well with a minimum of about 4 sq ft per bird. An outside run is sometimes nice BUT any chicken shit that collects and is subsequently rained on will stink to high heaven. The odor can be truly foul. If you keep them inside a coop, on deep litter (fine shavings) there is very little, if any, odor.
You will not need heat. A simple well ventilated coop that is NOT drafty will do well. You will need a metal water font, and a heated base to keep the water from freezing. But the biggest water font and feeder you can find. That was you can leave town for a week or two and not need a chicken sitter. Some breeds do well in cold. I am in NY on the canadian border in USDA zone 3. Its as cold as it gets in North East USA. I've tried a couple varieties and I am completely sold on Buff Orpingtons. Nice big birds, with good feathering, small combs and excellent all around cold resistance. Nice sedate non-psychotic dispostition too. Frozenny |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 3:12:35 PM EDT
[#21]
What do I do with them in the winter? It gets cold here in Maine?
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Posted: 8/13/2007 4:49:37 PM EDT
[#22]
OK, so you are in the same boat as me.... unless you are home at some point during the day you will need an electrically powered heater. You could try plastic waterers and rotate them so you always have a warm one ready to go.... but if that dosnt work you will need power fast. Who knows, with the whimpy winters of the last couple years a week or so of cold is do-able. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 4:52:55 PM EDT
[#23]
My mom has 8 large chickens(1 rooster)
She gets enough eggs every week to keep my family of 4 her and my dad and a couple of other couples in eggs. I too will own chickens one day. My mom has "Easter Egg Chickens". All there eggs are blue or green and just as big or bigger than grocery store xl eggs. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 4:54:27 PM EDT
[#24]
OH man Dave, do you owe me a computer screen washing!
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Posted: 8/13/2007 5:09:46 PM EDT
[#25]
We kept chickens on the farm in Minnesota, and there are no places in CONUS that is colder than there. I do not remember doing anything special with them. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 5:43:00 PM EDT
[#26]
I kept chickens for many years. In the winter, I closed up the screen windows in my coop, and made it weathertight, so the wind would not blow in. If the hens are protected from wind, and able to roost, or get down into their straw-filled nests, they will survive winter just fine-at least mine here in Michigan did. I never supplied any heat,and neither did any of my other chicken-keeping neighbors. Sure, the water froze-i gave them fresh water when I went back to feed them each day. Even in the winter, I always had enough eggs to supply my needs.
Not having a rooster is no great hardship-they will aggravate the @#$% out of you with their constant, all-day crowing. Hens by themselves are very quiet (usually! sometimes they can get to squawking and fussing among themselves) A last word of advice-build your coop strong and secure. Raccoons will soon be prowling around at night, and they dearly love a chicken dinner. They will exploit any weakness or opening in the coop, and get in and kill as many as possible. My first coop windows were covered in chicken wire-I soon learned, and replaced it with hardware cloth,heavily nailed all around. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 6:21:13 PM EDT
[#27]
Our "Girls" are so sweet. WTF...
My wife just scared the living shit out of me.... She was sitting the living room on the other end of the house. I am sitting here typing and she screamed as I near a crash. I grab the pistol and run to the living room to find her holding the end of the blind cord looking at me like she was scared to death. She tells me that she was sitting on the couch and heard something at the window. Like a goof she gets up and opens the blind to find a raccoon on the porch on her bird feeder. Great... a new threat to the girls. We both laughed about her reaction. I was writing to say that our coop is fairly well built. I think it will be ok temperature wise for the girls to roost. The problem I see is the water. I need to leave the little door open for the girls to go outside during the day. I am worried that the water which is currently kept in the coop might freeze. The little door opens to a 10x20' run. After loosing 2 mysteriously a few weeks ago I installed a black plastic netting over the entire run. We have had no problems since. The 2 that died were found in the run mauled by crows. I have made it a point of making the yard unwelcome for them. I know that people say that crows do not kill chickens but I have seen them pick a small rabbit, ground hog, and even kittens to death. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 7:01:29 PM EDT
[#28]
How can you get EGG without one? |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 7:16:04 PM EDT
[#29]
Should have stayed awake in Health class bud. This isn't the place for a sex-ed discussion. Tj |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 8:52:04 PM EDT
[#30]
Roosters don't lay eggs. Hens do. |
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Posted: 8/13/2007 11:03:44 PM EDT
[#31]
Biology 101. Edumication today must suck 
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Posted: 8/14/2007 5:14:45 AM EDT
[#32]
I never said I was a good pilot  AmericanPatriot1776: You don't need electricity to your coop, although you'll get more eggs in the winter if you keep a light in there during the long nights. (Eggs are a function of how much your hens eat, and how much they eat is a function of how long the day is.) For below-freezing nights, just put warm water in a metal waterer a couple times a day. (Don't use plastic, they crack when they freeze.) If you build a coop that's not drafty or damp, your chickens can stand extremely low temps. Send me your email address, I'll send you some pics of coops that might be helpful. |
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Posted: 8/14/2007 9:35:20 AM EDT
[#33]
Actually my dad, in central Illinois,...but totally agree on the rooster. Not only are they awake at the butt-crack of dawn Crowing!!!! --- but them summabitches can be mean. My mom beat that rooster half to death with a broom and it'd still go after her. My dad still has some scars on the top of his head where the rooster spurred him. Eggs without a rooster are just neutered eggs -- they won't hatch into chicks, is all. (Hey, not everybody knows...) My nephew tried his hand with some chickens, but aerial pedators, hawks and owls, got 'em all. He's going to try again, but with wire mesh over the top of the pen. |
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Posted: 8/14/2007 10:56:44 AM EDT
[#34]
Seriously, I was raised a city-boy and know how hens and roosters work. Think of it this way, does you old lady produce an egg (i.e. ovualte) every 28 days even when she has you cut off? Hell yeah! |
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Posted: 8/14/2007 12:20:09 PM EDT
[#35]
Said the little red rooster to the little red hen: "You haven't laid an egg since heaven knows when!"
Said the little red hen to the little red rooster: "You haven't come around as often as you uster!"
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Posted: 8/15/2007 2:51:13 AM EDT
[#36]
Reminds me of a story: A few weeks ago I took a trip on my KLR650 to Oskhosh to see AirVenture 2007. Towards the end of the day there was still some flying going on in the Ultralight/Helicopter area and the announcer was working the crowd between takeoffs of the ultralights. He stopped at one guy and asked him why he came to the show, and his response was "I want to learn how to fly". The announcer asked him a few more mundane questions and then asks him what he does for a living, and straight as an arrow he proclaimed "Oh, I'm an airline pilot". I think everyone knew he was serious about the latter because he rattled through the questions with the same cool collectedness that pilots manage with ATC's when they have a gear failure, jammed flap and a birdstrike all at the same time. Lots of laughs. |
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