Our Chicken Keeping Journey, as First Time Chicken Owners Part 1. “The Beginning”

When my little family moved to my fathers 10 acre land, I knew I wanted to do something special with it.

Enter, chickens.

Here’s our story on how we became first time chicken owners, and learned how to raise and keep chickens with zero experience.

Our journey as first time chicken keepers part 1

LET’S START AT THE BEGINNING… SORTA

So, Me, Erik, our two girls, and dog moved from a more city-like area in Bergen County, to basically the country in Sussex County… As you can imagine, we didn’t have any chicken or livestock experience…

But, I have always dreamed of a “easier” life, and a more self sufficient life.

Fast forward a few years, and I get the sudden desire to get chickens.

I’m a stay at home mom and a full time “homemaker”, but would really love to be able to pull in some money as well.

My thought process with this whole chicken thing was we can either make money by selling their eggs, or save money by not having to buy eggs.

So I mention to my dad one day, “I’m thinking baout getting chickens.”

THE DAY

Months and months go by with rarely anymore chicken talk.

But then, April 17th, 2022, Easter Day, family comes over, my dad vanishes for a little while, and shows back up with a box of 5 baby chicks from a local feed store, bedding, and food.

So I’m ecstatic, the kids are ecstatic, the dogs are ecstatic, we’re all holding and loving on these little puffballs, and then I quickly notice they dont have any heat supply!

So me and my dad and nephew run back to the feed store and pick up a little chick starter kit that comes with two types of feeders, a waterer, and a heat lamp.

We go back home, put them in one of those basic, plastic, outdoor garbage cans with all their stuff, and keep them in a spare bedroom.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS…

So now, we have all their necessities (although, a lot of the things we got, if I was the one that chose it all, would have chose differently… scroll all the way to the end to find out what I mean), life goes on.

These girls start growing like weeds!

It’s over a month later, and we still have no chicken coop!!!

We have the building for it, but it’s trashed with the previous owners crap (this home was a foreclosure and a lot of the buildings still had the other peoples junk in it) and I mean TRASHED!

The whole floor was covered with old clothes, old baby toys, furniture, mattresses, and just other random things. We knew it needed a lot of work, but we completely underestimated just HOW much work it needed.

This picture is during clean up… What you see here isn’t even half of it…

So my dad gets to work.

In the meantime, we have a chicken bedroom. These chickens are literally flying out of their brooder container (which at this point, was an abnormally large dresser drawer) and just walking around the whole bedroom like they own the place.

Like literally, when I’d wake up in the morning and go to the room to check on them and give them fresh food and water, they would be at my feet, greeting me at the gate (the room didnt have a door on it so we used a baby gate).

Now if you know anything baout birds, you know they just 💩 wherever, whenever. So you can imagine the mess all over the floor!!!

MOVE OUT DAY

So, after a week of cleaning up a chickens bedroom like they were messy teenage degenerates, the day finally came!!!

After constant hard work in a gross, mouse poop infested, trashed, used-to-be pigpen, my dad finally finished (mostly) a good portion of the building, large enough to frame in and use as their new home.

MOVE IN TIME

We were all excited to get them in their new home OUT OF THE HOUSE! And excited that they’ll have access to outside everyday, in their makeshift run (it was made of chicken wire zip tied to trees to stay up).

So we gathered them together, put them in a plastic storage container, walked them outside, and let them out to explore their new flat.

They were so happy. Scratching and pecking around, dust bathing, and chasing flying bugs.

But we were also so nervous because this is the first time they’ll be exposed to predators, and also their “run” was not predictor proof at all.

So naturally, I spent the whole rest of the day, until sundown, sitting in a broken chair in the middle of their run, getting literally eaten alive by mosquitoes, making sure they could enjoy the rest of their time outside without getting eaten. 😊

THE END, FOR NOW

I’ll end it here, but this is not the end.

Just the end for now.

I still have much more to share!

EXCLUSIVE FEATURE, IF YOU’RE INTERSETED… WHAT WE GOT, VS. WHAT I WISH WE GOT

My dad showed up, suprising us one day with chicks. So that means he also purchased their food, bedding, and heat source when he got them…

Although I didnt have any experience with chickens, I did do a lot of research on them since I was interested in getting them.

If I was the one that purchased them and their brooder supplies and initial starter feed, I would have chose differently. I also would have been prepared with a more acceptable brooder…

Here’s what we got, vs. what I WOULD HAVE got…