That title would only make sense to you if you watched Talk Soup on E! back in the 90s with Joel McHale. There was a segment that he would start with “Let’s talk about Chicks, Man.” Oh how I love Joel McHale.  Did you watch his Tiger King interview last spring?  Alright, I’ll stop.

Back in December, while home for about 10 days between Christmas and the New Year, I was getting excited about the spring and ways I was going to expand my garden and homesteading efforts. I just described a new garden row in this last post. My other goal was to identify five foods I no longer want to buy from a store and will instead grow and make myself. On that list are jelly, green beans, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and eggs.  The first four are garden focused and I’ll keep you posted on those efforts this summer. Eggs are the other item I don’t ever want to buy again.

So I set off on a journey to create my “dream flock” with all the breeds I find beautiful and interesting. Up til now I’ve been pretty basic with white leghorns and brown bovans (we won’t talk about my Wyandottes that dropped dead). And I haven’t had the best success with choosing hens and have ended up with nearly 50% roosters when I get chicks at Tractor Supply. I did a little research on the different hatcheries and decided to go with Murray McMurray because 1) I could choose females and 2) I could buy the exact quantity I wanted without having to meet a minimum.

I decided to order 15 birds, to add to the 8 I already have so that I would get approximately two dozen eggs a day. My thinking here is to hopefully start selling eggs and cover my costs. This would get me roughly 14 dozen eggs/week, of which I will hopefully sell 12. If I charge anywhere from $4.50 to $5/dozen that will cover what I’m spending on feed and scratch. I do have some more calculations to firm this up since I’m not sure how much they will all eat once full grown.

Here’s what I ordered:

• 3 golden wyandottes – gorgeous, just gorgeous
• 3 buff orpingtons – they remind me of golden retrievers and are supposed to be very friendly
• 4 barred rocks – I’ve always loved these – just the quintessential chicken
• 3 speckled sussex – I love there feather patterns
• 2 dominiques – I can’t quite figure out how these are different from Barred Rocks, so will see if I can tell.

They threw in a “free surprise chick” and 17 chicks ended up arriving in total so you do the math 😊 I will say McMurray Hatchery was great to buy from. I got an email reminder about a month out and then some text message reminders as well. All chicks came alive and chipper. I immediately gave them some water with Hydro Hen 3-in-1 mixed in and they are all doing well.

With all of the chicks in my bathtub, I am a bit nervous I bit off more than I can chew but nothing ventured, nothing gained right?

What about you? What do-it-yourself business have you tried and how did it work out? What do you wish you had known?