LEFTY PREPPER MOM

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Preparedness
    • Where to begin
    • Bug-Out Bags
    • Basic Disaster Supplies
    • Car Preparedness
    • Medical Issues >
      • Medical Supplies
      • Health Preparedness
      • Disaster First Aid
    • Water Storage
    • Long Term Food Storage >
      • Food Shelf Life
      • Stocking Up
      • Food Preservation
      • How to Store Food
      • Where to Store Food
  • Survival
    • Cooking without Electricity
    • Gardening Basics
    • Sanitation & Laundry
    • Personal Hygiene
    • Security
    • Outdoor Survival
    • Starting a Fire
  • RESOURCES
  • SHOP
    • Books
    • Cooking Supplies
    • Emergency Kits
    • Food & Water Storage
    • Food Preserving
    • Sanitation
    • Medical Supplies
    • Gardening Supplies
    • Security
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Preparedness
    • Where to begin
    • Bug-Out Bags
    • Basic Disaster Supplies
    • Car Preparedness
    • Medical Issues >
      • Medical Supplies
      • Health Preparedness
      • Disaster First Aid
    • Water Storage
    • Long Term Food Storage >
      • Food Shelf Life
      • Stocking Up
      • Food Preservation
      • How to Store Food
      • Where to Store Food
  • Survival
    • Cooking without Electricity
    • Gardening Basics
    • Sanitation & Laundry
    • Personal Hygiene
    • Security
    • Outdoor Survival
    • Starting a Fire
  • RESOURCES
  • SHOP
    • Books
    • Cooking Supplies
    • Emergency Kits
    • Food & Water Storage
    • Food Preserving
    • Sanitation
    • Medical Supplies
    • Gardening Supplies
    • Security







​"Because Survival is insufficent."
- Star Trek Voyager, Episode 122

The Chicken dream

2/6/2018

2 Comments

 
Are you one of those city kids who has always dreamed of raising chickens? Lefty Prepper Mom is a poultrywoman wannabe, and now it's time for the dream to become reality! 
​
​I grew up in Seattle in a house with a double-sized lot and a pretty decent sized backyard vegetable garden. Now that I think back, I’m a little surprised that my parents didn’t have chickens. 
Picture
​They weren’t exactly hippies (my dad was a high-school teacher and my mom was, at least for my younger days, a stay at home mom), but they were vegetarian for a while, and had 4 kids. I guess we were just slightly alternative Catholics. In any case – we had two dogs, a couple of cats, a bunch of fruit trees and a big vegetable garden, but no chickens.

​Years later, after being away from Washington state for college and medical school, I moved back with my own family and started dreaming of raising some backyard egg-layers. The urban farm movement was starting to pick up steam in the early 2000s, and although I didn’t (and don’t) eat meat I do eat eggs, so the allure of having sweet ladies providing the family with fresh eggs every day was enticing. But I was in the middle of a tough bit of medical training called my internship and residency, working 60+ hours per week and mothering two little people under the age of 4. Chickens had to wait.
Picture
Fast forward 18 years, and here we are. New home with lots of space for gardening, small tykes now bigger than me and one already launched to college, and a bit more time on my hands. Sweet ladies providing brunch food – here we come! It’s still winter so I have not adopted said chickens, yet. I am, in fact, very open to suggestions on breeds and other chicken-raising tips. 
​Everything I know about chickens thus far has been learned from book reading and talking to my neighbors up the street. I have chicken coop plans, however, and what I think is a pretty sweet design for a chicken run or “chicken moat” to be constructed from two sturdy hog wire fences around my vegetable garden. Imagine a securely fenced running track for chickens with a veggie garden inside the middle and the great wide world of our backyard on the outside. 
Picture
We're going to build our version of this chicken coop.
Picture
This is the garden that inspired ours, except that ours will have an attached chicken coop (see drawing below).
Picture
Here is our current garden, before fencing
Picture
​I have heard WAY to many stories about chicken massacres from friends and neighbors, so we are hoping to construct a veritable chicken fortress with a foundation around the bottom of our coop to keep out rats, coyotes and raccoons , buried fencing along the bottom of our garden fence, and bird netting over the top of our chicken moat to keep out the plentiful birds of prey in our area. Hopefully the coop will be constructed in the next month. We’re going pick up our baby chicks at the beginning of March, so we’ll have to make a decision about breeds, before then. We’re thinking 3 pairs of chickens, with different breeds for each. Maybe two  Ameraucana, two Plymouth Rock and two Welsummers? I’ll keep everyone posted on our progress!
Picture
2 Comments
Leah Smith
2/7/2018 06:15:06 am

Hi! I would put in my vote for Turkens. They are rather homely, but very lovable chickens. They're called that because they look like a chicken/turkey cross. But they're all chicken. Viking Feed in Kingston is a great resource on chicken!

Reply
Andrea link
2/7/2018 12:50:44 pm

Thank you, Leah! I just looked them up and they ARE different looking with their featherless necks! But I do hear that they're sweet birds. I will keep them in mind and check out Viking Feed!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Andrea is a mother, wife, doctor, triathlete & preparedness enthusiast.

    Archives

    March 2020
    January 2019
    October 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos from North Carolina National Guard, Kevin Steinhardt, Carl Mikoy, OakleyOriginals, Baugher Webmaster Services, Baugher Webmaster Services