C is for Chickens 101

Chickens:

I never dreamed I would grow up and be a totally awesome chicken chick, it just happened.  My husband is actually responsible for sharing the love of chicken raising with me.   It is my fault, however, that we have 30 chickens.   I fell in love with them as babies and then fell in love with the different breeds and eggs and I became set on having chickens that were cool, cute, and gave me Easter colored eggs every day of the year. 

When I was talking to hubs about this blog challenge he said I should do eggs for E.  I said, no because I am doing chickens for C and since chickens came first for us, eggs are just going to be part of the C.

So let's talk eggs.  Did you know they come in colors beyond white and brown?  You can see in the picture below that my eggs are white, brown, green, and sort of a pinkish beige color.  I have some eggs that come out looking like they are polk-a-dotted. 

The egg color is actually determined by the breed of hen and there is absolutely no significance to the shell color and nutrition or taste.  The shell color is simply the shell color. 

What about nutrition and taste though?  Are all eggs created equal?  Not by a long shot.   Pasture raised chickens lay a dark yellow/orange yolk that is rich and much more flavor filled than a cage or so called free range chicken.   Pasture raised eggs also should be more nutrition packed than eggs from chickens who aren't running around eating bugs, my flowers and vegetable garden, and quality feed. 

When you are looking for the most tasty, rich, and nutritious eggs, you should find a local chicken farmer and see if they are willing to sell their eggs or better yet, build a coop and start your own backyard chicken ranch.  You don't need 30.  Two or three will do most people nicely.

I want to explain a few things about store labels.  There has been a big movement to cage free eggs.  Cage free hens are only slightly less tortured than caged animals.  It is terrible that chickens, who have so much personality and character, are forced to live their life in a cage but the label cage free is really misleading.   What most people believe when they are buying cage free, organic eggs, is actually what they would get by buying pasture raised eggs. 

My chickens are outside all day and don't go to bed until the sun sets.  Between dawn and dusk my chickens are running around my yard and sometimes my neighbor's yard.   They roam.  Is it dangerous?  Yes, we do lose some to predators and this has been a hard lesson for me.   I can't stop the chicken hawk or coyote but I also can't stand the thought of making my birds stay in a closed in area, grass or no grass, all day long.

Speaking of grass or no grass, the cage free raised chickens are not required to actually have grass.  It is sad really, what some misinformed Hollywood stars and the media try to pass as the kinder, gentler chicken farming. Cage free chickens may never even get outside.  Free range chickens go outside but they may only be out for an hour a day and they aren't required to have access to grass.   The labels are really misleading and the eggs are super expensive for what you are actually getting. 

Understand this, people who raise their own chickens probably aren't doing it to get rich.  I sell very few eggs, give a bunch to family and neighbors who take care of them when we are out of town, and eat the rest.  Feed isn't cheap and although my girls and boys (Yes, I have roosters, 3 to be exact) aren't picky, they do like to have some cracked corn or better yet, fresh corn along with a few treats like cabbage and whatever else I can find on sale at the grocery to keep them out of my garden.  

Chickens are very entertaining.  It is amazing how much time I spend out in the backyard just talking to and watching these little balls of goofy.   Did you know that chickens are the closest living relative to dinosaurs?   Watch them walk and it will make sense. 

So, in the end, I would say, chickens, while not the smartest animal alive, are incredibly fun, well, except for the cleaning the coop.

Daffy, Daisy, and Patty: Welcome to my Duck Dynasty

Do you watch Duck Dynasty?  Did you know last year that I met a lot of the cast members and that you can see  My brush with Uncle Si here?  We are totally going back this year, BTW and I have a goal to meet Phil and Miss Kay.  Anyway, that isn't what this blog is about.   It's about Ducks! 

Most people on St. Patrick's day drink green beer.  Me?  I buy ducks.  Okay, I may have had some green beer too but the ducks came first. Seriously, how cute are my little wobbly web footed friends?   So, here is what I know about ducks, pretty much nothing except they will eventually swim and they like cracked corn.  

So last Thursday we brought home the little ducklings and promptly installed them in our chicken brooder.  They have no feathers so just like chicks, they must be warm (hence the light in the photo) and they must be inside until they are fully feathered.  (Unless it were like 100 degrees in Texas already, it's close but not yet.)   The argument discussion then began over what to name them.  Finally my husband told me they are Daffy, Daisy, and Patty.  I was fine with the first two but I was really pushing for Paddy and for her to be a boy but I lost.   Why, you ask, not Donald?   Well, we have only one boy and we decided that right now Donald is associated with a more negative person than the little duckling deserved.  That and my neighbor's white duck who met a sad demise a few weeks ago, I called Donald.   

Alright, you ask, "What am I going to do with ducks?"   Well, we are going to keep them as pets, first and foremost.   I miss the quacking my neighbor's ducks provided and having lost both in a matter of a few weeks made me sad.  We got 2 girls and a boy because we wanted to take a try at duck eggs.  I hear they are amazing.   Plus, maybe we can breed a few ourselves.   

You may also be asking, "Okay so you have more fowl friends, but what kind are they"?   These ducks are Rouen Ducks and they are French.  I don't know if that means my ducks will require special sauces on their food or an Eiffel tower painted home but I do know that when they grow up they will look very much (almost exactly) like Mallards but they will be a little bigger, produce a little less on the egg side, and apparently, they don't really fly.   

You are probably asking "Where are you going to keep them and do ducks and chickens get along?"  Well, the plan is for the hubs to build a little home near the chicken coop for the baby ducks and yes, the ducks and the chickens do get along.  In fact, before my neighbor's ducks passed away/disappeared, we often let them in our backyard to eat with our chickens and waddle around for a bit.   The only thing, so far, that I have managed to figure out that is different about the ducks and the chicks is that you do  not give ducks medicated crumble food because it will kill them but with chicks you need to keep them on that for the first several months of their life to fight disease.  

The dogs, by the way, are really annoyed that they don't get equal time in the blog.  They look all tore up, don't they?

Ries can hardly sleep!

Sadie is packing her bags!

So I promised them that I would give them some blog space soon.  Sadie hasn't posted a blog in 2 years and Ries hasn't posted one ever so maybe it's Doxie time.

Final question: "What does this mean to you, my dear readers?"  Well, obviously you can expect more duck and chicken posts in the near future.   I have even made a section in my toolbar especially for my feathered friends.   I can't promise you that you will become an eggspert (get it?  Oh I am so funny!) on either but if you have any questions at all about ducks, chickens or dachshunds for that matter, I will be happy to try and answer.  

If you love this blog please share it, pin it, stumble it, or tweet.  Just go crazy!

Thank you for reading and as always,
Enjoy the ride!

Laura

Backyard Chickens 101

Laurel

Backyard Chicken Farming:  

Do you all know anyone who owns chickens?  Have they tried to get you interested in having a chicken or three of your own?   Did you know that backyard chickens are becoming a really popular pet/pass time/hobby?   

I am not going to lie, I love my chickens.  Not only that but I am not the only person I know with chickens.  In fact, in my small group of friends in the Dallas area, I know of at least 3 other people directly who raise chickens and a few other people who raise them through friends of friends.  That's a lot of chickens folks, and I am in a large suburban area.   

Silkie

When you start raising chickens there are a few things you should understand.  I am going to list them in no particular order.   

By the way,  the photos in this blog are just a few of my chickens.   Aren't they cute?   The Silkie above is named Silkie, original huh?  The little White Americauna at the top of the Blog is named Laurel after my niece.   They all have names but with 30 chickens it is a test for me to remember them day to day.   The hen below is Pocahauntis, below that is either Winnie or Dottie but I can't tell the difference because they look alike followed by Rex, the Roo, El Chappo the little Roo, our only surviving white leg horn Trip, Charlie the Roo, Red,  and in the egg box is Cinnderella.  Woohoo!  I managed to get all those right!   It's actually harder than you imagine telling chickens apart! 

Pocahauntis

Okay, so all you need to know about chickens you learn from a blog?  Not even close!  I will give you a brief overview but trust me, I read about them all the time.  No, really.  

Winnie or Dottie I am not sure

First things first, before you buy chicks you have to have a place for them, water and food dispensers and a plan for when they are ready to go out into the world.  Are you going to free range or will you give them limited and protected space to range?   If it's the later you will have to build them some sort of enclosed space.  

Next, when you buy babies you have to raise them in a brooder with a heat lamp for about the first 6 weeks to forever or whenever they get fully feathered.   Now, if you are lucky enough to plan this chick raising for summer and you live somewhere where it is hot, like say, Texas,  you can actually raise the babies outside without the aid of a heat lamp because there is this thing called the sun.  However, make sure you have a really safe, predator free place to raise your chicks because all kinds of animals are going to see them as food from birds to dogs and cats to things that go bump in the night.   Know the difference between straight runs and pullets before you buy chickens or you may end up with roosters you don't want.   Most breeds are available in straight runs (where they sexed the hens) but certain breeds aren't ao you take your chances.  For the record, I love my roosters.   They are protective of my hens and they are fun.   If you live in an area where the noise is a problem however, you may have to adopt them out and that can be a problem.  Unfortunately,  they end up too often on someone's table.  (Rex doesn't approve.) 

Rex

Make sure to put your chicks on a medicated chick food.  They need it to prevent disease.  

El Chapo

Realize no matter what you do, you are going to lose some.  This little leghorn who is now named Trip was originally one of 3.  The other two we lost, one to a freak accident and one to a predator.   It's the hazard of letting them roam free range and be chickens.   She is still just a baby, by the way.   

Trip

Speaking of that,  know that you are going to be raising them for at least 6 months before you get eggs.   I would guess it goes without saying but you never know, roosters don't lay eggs.   Some of the smaller breeds like the Silkies may not lay for 12 months or more.   Some breeds lay better than others but no chicken lays every day.  The best layers average about 270 days a year.   Pretty much we are averaging 12 eggs a day with 30 chickens, 3 of which are roosters and probably 3 more of which are not yet laying.   

Charlie

Watch your chickens.  Learn their personalities.   They have them.  Because we spent several days a week last summer watching our chickens after work, I became very familiar with my chickens personalities which has allowed me to key in when three of them were just not right.   That has caused me to isolate them early and prevent not only them from dying but also my flock from contracting Fowl Pox, a highly contagious disease.  I took steps to boost their immune system ASAP and they are all super healthy, thank heavens.  

Red (It might be Ruby)

Prepare your yard:

You are going to lose plants.  Some they will eat.  Some they will just perch in like the bush below which is a favorite.   Your garden may become their garden.   We had to put a barrier up around our tomato plants last summer.   My begonias were goners once the chickens found them.   There are flowers that are safe but you will have to research and test what works best in your area Even with chicken safe flowers, my flower beds look like little mini-bombs went off.  Chickens dust as a way to keep mites off and they burrow into the beds doing it.  It is just part of their charm. 

Keep in mind that after a while you are going to have hens sitting in egg boxes like ours. 

Cinderella

And a refrigerator full of these beauties:

About  2 1/2 days worth

There is a lot that goes in to raising chickens and I would highly suggest that before you commit you read some blogs, follow some pages on Facebook and, of course, feel free to ask me or anyone else who has chickens.  I was lucky, my husband has raised them for years.  That said, even he wasn't aware of some of the things we encountered, like Fowl Pox.  In fact, that was something a friend spotted from a picture I posted of my sick chicken on Facebook.  He had a good eye because even after I read up on the illness, I wasn't sure how he knew.  She had only one tiny black spot on her waddle.  Luckily, I was able to hand feed and water her and she is good as new and running around the back yard and laying eggs again like a champ.  The moral of the story, with chickens, you are always learning.

Country weekends: Calm, Relaxing, and...oh who am I kidding?

We had a busy, busy weekend!  I really need a weekend to get over it. 

I finally got my mixer!  LOVE!!

Friday started out running around town, Target and Walmart were tops on the list.  We found a sale on the Kitchenaid Mixer I have been drooling over for months so I was finally able to get it with the use of a gift card and the sale, I ended up just having to supply $20 and tax.   What I am saying is that when all is said and done and with the gift cards that have been just sitting there doing nothing since my wedding a year and a half ago included, I got this Professional mixer, the one I have been begging for the last 6 weeks,  for $39!   Even my husband couldn't complain about the money on that.  So what have I made with it?  Mashed potatoes.  I know, my hand mixer is probably easier for that but I just wanted to try it out.  I may take those brown bananas and make banana bread tonight after I run a sales call. (See last paragraph for more)

My town has a tour of coops every year.   Now, my coop looks like crap right now because we have plastic over the windows to keep the chickens warm in the frozen winters.  Okay, it hasn't been that cold but that wind will surprise you.  Texas gets down into the 20's at night.   Anyway, I had to send them some photos.  I apologized for how bad it looks currently but the tour isn't until the spring which gives me plenty of time if we are included.

Our coop is a little different from what you see on Pinterest.  No chandeliers, no house feelings.  It is functional and it is safe.  However, I have done a little to make it cute.   Mostly with signs.

The pink and green colors were for the kid but I may end up repainting it this summer.  I think a nice white and may some darker trim would be good eventually, although I don't really think the chickens agree.

They seem pretty happy.   We are starting to ready our garden so I have to find a way to keep the little monsters out so we can actually grow veggies.  We managed to get the onions in and they have left them alone so far, so that's a positive.

Saturday we went and picked up trash along the farm to market road we live on.  You would be shocked at the things we found: Bras, dirty underwear, pants, shirts, shoes, needles, tons of beer cans and a lot of fast food slop.   It made me seriously consider how the little stuff people throw out the window, not thinking of it, creates a huge mess.   We must have had at least a full dumpster full of stuff when it was over and we only went about a mile up and down two sides of the road.   We really could do this every weekend for a month or two and still not get it all.   After we cleaned the road coming into the town, I cleaned up my front yard and found another half a trash bag full of junk thrown out into my yard.   My husband is pretty good about picking things up when he sees them so this was mild compared to what it would be if we didn't stay on it.   I think the biggest thing I learned it people don't have the respect for other people's property that they should and that they use to.  

After all that it was the usual, more errands, taking the kiddo to a sleep over, and making dinner.   I live the dream people!

My family room has a very lodge like feel. 

Sunday we met friends for breakfast, ran even more errands.  Seriously, how do people find the time to do all the stuff that needs to be done?  We picked up 1000 pounds of sand...yes you read that right, and hauled that back to the house. Went to the Chinese market where you can see some of the most amazing and sometimes frightening things ever.  Next we spent part of our day. before the football started, dipping water out of the pool by the bucket.  Don't be jealous.  I know you can't imagine anything more thrilling, neither can I.  Honestly though, the chickens loved the worms that came up because of all that water!

Later,  I decided to make some wall art for hubs (above).  This is for our family room but it is really  more his room.  I try to make it comfortable for him with "man" things around.  The way I figure it, I have the rest of the house so this should reflect him and be his space.  I have been reworking all my rooms and the places I hang things for several weeks now, trying to avoid painting the walls yet hiding the left over reminders of the previous owner.   It isn't that I don't want to paint as much as I don't have the time.   Anyway, these two canvas were created using stencils and paint and I love how they turned out. I just need to find some rustic frames for them to complete the look. .

I found this little lady waiting on me at my office the other day.  Isn't she adorable?   I love her.  I am totally into vintage signs and rustic looking metal so this was perfect.

The above is something I got a few weeks ago Amazon. Just an aside here, I am addicted to Amazon Prime. Free shipping and they are fast.  The only issue I have with the letters is that I really want to hang them on my bedroom walls and they don't have hangers so right now they are just sitting on top of this cabinet.   Hubs said he can makes holes for me so they can be hung, once that happens I will follow up and let you see how that works. (The family room and the master are two of the rooms I don't have time to repaint right now.)  My style is somewhere between rustic country and vintage if that makes any sense at all.   I kind of think of it as Joanna Gaines with color.(Not as cute and certainly no where near as skinny or talented.)  My walls are not white or grey and I think I would be bored if they were.  I would love ship lap walls but I would probably stain them and not paint them white and I really want barn door in my bedroom but right now, I just want the house to be DONE! 

Excuse the garage lighting. 

Okay, finally for that dry sink above.   This is a piece I refinished a while ago and have had just sitting waiting for the right buyer.   I had one lady really interested and she wanted it but it ended up being too short for her purpose.  She was going to use it in a bathroom as a sink.   I may have finally found a buyer who really wants it so we will see.   As you can tell from the mixer photo,  it was painted to match my kitchen cabinets and I love the piece but I have several things in the works and no room for them so I have to learn to let go if someone wants to buy the piece.  *Tears.

So, how was your weekend?  Did you do any fun DIY or community projects?   Did you enjoy football?  GO Broncos! 

Backyard Chicken farming: What you need to know and why you should do it!

The colors come from the breed.  They all are the same inside. 

Something amazing happened last night.  I came home to a dozen fresh laid eggs.  This might not seem fascinating to everyone but you are just plain WRONG!  This is wonderful!  We have 19 hens currently ready or almost ready to lay eggs.   We won't get more than 1 egg every day to 2 days from them.  To have 12 eggs in one day is AWESOME!  So I thought I would give you some idea of what it is like to be a backyard chicken farmer.

Some of our newest Babies 

These are our youngest chicks.  The White Leghorns above, were just released to the "wild" last week.  My husband calls them the Wild Indians because they are not super friendly.  They are however, not afraid of any Rooster or Hen we have.  Bravehearts! 

Our youngest.  

These are our youngest and they are just a tad bigger than this photo now.  They moved outside last night to outdoor brooder because we are trying to acclimate them to the rest of the flock.   What you have to understand is that chickens really do have a pecking order.

My Roo Charlie and hen Beltre

For example, Charlie above is second in command.  Rooster Rex is the boss.  I named him Rex because roosters are the closest living relative to the T-Rex.   When I first read this (Yes, I read about chickens, a lot!)  I thought how funny.  Chickens are so little.  When we started raising them and I started to watch them, the way they move, the way they behave, I could see it.  They really do have some sort of ancient and wonderful quality about them.  

My Roo Rex, too worried about food to pose. 

Rex is totally the boss.  We got them a week apart and I was worried.  I had read all these horrible things about roosters.  Either we just got really lucky or roosters get a bad rap.  My roosters spent all of 5 minutes jumping over one another and chest bumping (Yes, Roos Chest bump.  No it is not a celebration of a touchdown or some awesome male bonding moment) to determine who was boss. After Rex established himself as the king of the jungle, so to speak, that was it.  They have a lot of hens to pick from and they go about their rooster business of crowing and foraging and watching the flock.   They often are seen sitting on the fence posts next to one another taking turns singing.  Neither of them are terribly noisy.   Now let me say this, Charlie came to us because he is a good crowing Roo.  He isn't terribly loud but I am sure our friends, who live in a subdivision, felt like he was a problem.  This is what happens to a lot of roosters, sadly.   Charlie is just happy as can be on our little acre plus and he doesn't bother anyone.  Both our roosters came from family/friends.  Both adopted quickly to our flock.   Actually, they took a grand total of 1 day to completely feel at home.  That is 1 day between them.  In fact....Charlie and Rex have made friends with the neighbors little bantam rooster.

Neighbors Ducks and chickens 

Actually, truth be told, our neighbors rooster has stayed over night the last two nights and he spends his entire day in our yard so I don't know if our neighbor thinks we chicken napped him or what.  In fact, his ducks come over and spend most of their day in our yard as well.   Come to think of it, so do his hens.   My husband laughs at me because when I get home at night to go collect eggs, chickens come running.  Even if the chickens are in the neighbors yard collecting bugs they see/hear me and come running at full chicken speed.

Alright, so here are a few things you should know about raising chickens and me being totally bias, thinks everyone should have at least 2-3 chickens.  They are amazing creatures, fun to watch, and they give you eggs!  We don't go to movies often, and baseball season is over, so until my husband can get back to the land to hunt, all we do is watch our chickens and laugh.

Here we go:

-You are never going to get rich chicken farming out of your backyard.  Yes, we do sometimes sell our extra eggs.  No we don't charge outrageous prices for the.  We basically look at the price as offsetting the chicken feed slightly.   We aren't trying to make money, just get a little extra to buy more chicken treats. :)

-Chickens are fairly easy to keep once you have some things set up.   You need a brooder (a place to keep baby chicks until they are fully feathered), a coop area, and then you have a decision to make.   If you are in a city and you can keep chickens (many cities now let you, btw),  then you need some place safe for them to roam.   Chickens need some freedom to be happy hens. You need water bowls and feeders.   We had a low cost set-up because my husband was able to get his hands on some free wood so most of what we bought were the hinges and the framing  wood.   You can buy prefab kits for your hens and make one of those fancy coops with chandeliers but you should be aware you are doing that for you.  Our chickens don't care about the coop lighting or paint color.  They know it is a safe place to sleep.  They spend most of the day under our patio deck.  I on the other hand, do care about the coop signs so I have decorated their coop area with a few of my hand painted signs.

-Chickens need a different food as babies than a 6 month old chicken.   Similar to children and puppies, our baby chicks get a fortified feed to protect them.  Once they are about 5-6 months old they will be at the egg laying stage and should have moved off baby chick food and onto layer pellets.

-Chickens have a natural instinct to go home.  Charlie and Rex both figured out where home was the first night.  They went into the coop without any training.   Our first group of chickens took about 2-3 days to figure it out and after that they bedded themselves.  The white leghorns above?  The first day we let them out, they followed the bigger hens and the roosters into the coop.   For the record, they go back to the coop when the light starts to go down.

-Chickens do not subscribe to Daylight Saving Time.  Do you remember that stuff you learned way back when in school about DST being for the farmers so they could get extra time to farm in daylight?  Bunk!  There are no farm animals on this earth who spring forward and fall back.  My chickens have been mad at me the last two days because we fell back and they didn't and they aren't happy waiting for me to let them out an hour later than normal!   You have never seen anything more frightening  amusing than a flock of angry chickens, anxious to get out and forage the yard, coming at your head at 6:45 am.  (I hate DST for the record.  So much so that I actually looked up why we do it and there is honestly not one good reason why.  This sent me off on a Facebook and Twitter tirade yesterday and I refuse to fall back with any clock at the house except my husband's alarm and my coffee pot.   I mean, I need my coffee pot right!)

-Different breeds of chickens, along with laying different colored eggs, will exhibit different personality traits.  Some breeds are calm and friendly and some are...not.   We have a couple of hens that will just jump on our laps now and wait for us to feed them.  Shoot, Red, one of our Rhode Island Reds, doesn't even wait.  She will grab the bread off the table or out of my hand and feed herself.  She is very funny.  Most of our hens actually wait for us to give them the food although pretty much all the hens and even sometimes the roos will eat out of our hand.

Most people have dogs so let me explain it this way,  I have 2 Dachshunds.  Riesling is a Longhair and Sadie is a Wirehair.   When I first got them, I read about traits of the dog. I thought they were crazy telling me different hair lengths made a difference.    Longhair Dachsies tend to be anxious, whine, and get separation anxiety.   I got Ries anyway because who believes that mess?   Then she started to exhibit all those traits.  I took her with me on a stay over with a friend and we went out shopping.  She waited by the door whining for 3 hours...non-stop.   She chewed through electrical cords when I wasn't home.  She tore things up.   So I got Sadie to keep her company.   Now, Wirehair Dachsies are something else.  They are mixed with terriers usually to get the beard effect.  This makes them incredibly hyper and very good hunters.  Sadie is the best little tracker ever.  Unfortunately, it took us months and 3 baby chicks, to get her to understand she can't track the chickens in the backyard because they are not her prey.   (She doesn't get left alone to this day although she pretty much has been taught to ignore them now.)  Ries on the other hand couldn't care less about the chickens because she wants to eat the feed. My dogs are very much typical of their breed and hair length.  


-You will lose some chickens eventually to predators unless you have them completely caged off outside ground to sky.   Chickens have a lot of natural predators including Sadie. Dogs, coyotes, fox, chicken hawks and a number of digging creatures who can tunnel under a fence (the reason I said you have to enclose them top to bottom, floor to sky) will want to eat your chickens.   We know this.  I hate it.  In fact that little rooster of our neighbors that I told you has basically adopted us?  He was almost taken by a chicken hawk a few weeks ago out of our backyard.  My husband had to go out there and yell for 10 minutes to make sure the thing was scared off.   The same neighbor lost a chicken earlier this past summer to a coyote.   Like it or not, and I don't, it is part of the cycle of life.

-Pasture raised chicken eggs, what you get when you let your chickens free-range all day, are the most amazing eggs.   They are richer, creamier, and the yokes are so dark they are nearly orange.   You will want every egg you make to be over easy so you can enjoy those yokes!

-The FDA doesn't really define the designer egg qualities so if you are paying extra for cage free don't kid yourself that you are getting eggs from happy chickens who roam around.  They are most likely sitting in a barn area with little space and it is not a happy place.  Free Range are better but there is no real qualification of how long they have to be outside so most may get left out for an hour or two and may have no access to green grass and space.  What you should buy if you are going to spend that extra money is Pasture Raised.  They have access to the outside all day and they are free...truly free.

-The last thing you should know about chicken raising is that you may feel guilty when you make a winner, winner chicken dinner.   I swear to you every time I fry chicken I look at hubs and kid and say..."Now don't let the chickens see you eating this.  I don't want them to worry."  We won't eat our chickens.  That isn't what we are raising them for.   Some people do "cull" their flock.  I can't do it.  My chickens will live until they don't live and that is that.  I love my feathered babies and I can't imagine sitting down to dinner and looking at a plate full of Cinderella, Katniss, or Snow White.

Guilty!!! 

But SERIOUSLY, my fried chicken, my husband's favorite livers, mashed potatoes, and gravy are stinking good.