We're enjoying a rainbow of eggs now and are averaging seven per day. At the most, half of our hens are laying, so I fully expect to be getting 15+ a day within the next month or so. Sizes are increasing and most of the hens have learned to use the nesting boxes.

Bootsie tries his hardest ;)

About the Author

Heya! I am Slejdad, a father of five, a grateful Christian and a hobby farmer in southeast Virginia. I served our country in the U.S. Navy for 24 years and now work full time for the government and go to school full time pursuing my bachelor’s in business administration. In my spare time I am building and running a hobby farm which will end up being my hobby in my golden years.

About Hentopia

          Welcome to Hentopia, a blog about the joys, challenges, triumphs and heartbreaks of raising pet chickens. Here I will share my journey through the adventure of raising chickens (as pets) and maybe inspire others to start raising chickens. I do not know everything (don’t tell my wife I admitted that, I will deny it) so anyone if free to weigh in with their knowledge and tips or tricks to make this wonderful hobby even more enjoyable.

            Here at the Homestead we currently have three flocks and two loners, which will eventually become two flocks. One will be full-sized while the other is bantam sized. We, of course, benefit from the egg production of our birds, but we do not raise them for meat. That’s not to say that we don’t process a chicken when culling is required, because wasting good meat just isn’t cool.

            Our two flocks of full-sized chickens are both about 15 birds big and we will integrate the younger 15 when they get a little bigger. We currently have the two flocks in a look but don’t touch situation with the two chicken runs parallel to each other and separated by about 3 inches. This will give the birds time to get used to each other before they are put together and hopefully will keep the pecking violence to a minimum.