In the beginning.

In the beginning I wanted chickens. No, I needed chickens! Every time I would go to the grocery store and spend on average $3.00 for a dozen smallish wimpy eggs, I would think about how I could be saving money if I had...chickens. We have had chickens before, about four years ago. We allowed them to free range during the day and would lock them up in a chicken coop my son built. The chicken coop he built was awesome and as long as we would pick them up; we did not lose too many. However; free ranging in the yard was not quite as safe for them, as we found out later. Even in the mornings when we would let them out; little did we know there were some ghastly mean meat eating animals watching and waiting for their chance for a tasty spicy chicken meal. All we had to do was go inside and the coyote would run up grab a chicken and run away. How did we figure this out? Outdoor cameras!! Eventually the coyotes became so brazen they would steal the chickens right in front of us. Chicken hawks was another animal to take advantage of us!! Same color as the chickens, sometimes very hard to see. One day I walked outside and there is this beautiful large bird just sitting in the middle of the group watching the chickens as they went about their daily pecking in the yard. He was milling over his choices of meals kind of like a human checking out a McDonald's Menu. After some time passed and we were down to three of the original group of fifteen. I told my son let us eat the rest before those dastardly greedy wicked coyotes and chicken hawks do. So we had some good crock pot chicken for a few meals; even gave one to Granny. But now I am back to thinking about getting chickens. Here are pictures of our original coop. My son did a good job building it.