The weather is fairing up and the chickens are beginning to lay a little better. Being housed up all winter,slows things up a bit in the egg department, but warm weather brings them alive once more.Pop has debated many times as to whether we need to sell the whole flock or not. During the winter months, the cost of feeding the hens outweighs the benefits we get from keeping them year round. He and I could get by on one dozen eggs a week, most weeks,but then we would miss them so.We have always had chickens around. I think more for nostalgia than anything else, but there comes a time when even nostalgia must fall by the wayside,especially with the economy being in such a mess.If we could let them roam freely,full time, it might be different, but when you raise a garden, you need to keep that in mind. With the cost of fencing being as it is,too, that is almost out of the question.It would take a huge fenced in area to keep the chickens in grass. They tend to kill a plot of grass quickly.I guess we could fence in the garden, but then my flowers would fall prey to the chickens.It seems it's a catch twenty two no matter which way we decide to go.I love my flowers and my garden, but we love the chickens,too. For years, I had to tolerate Pop's prize beagle hounds tearing up my flowers,and now it's the chickens. Many times,over the years, I've considered throwing in the towel on my flowers,but I keep trying to find a happy medium where we can all live together and be content.You'd think after 35 years, I'd have found it,by now.I guess there's one way to look at it.
No man lives long enough to conquer all of life's challenges.
This is the first time we have been without hens in 38 years. I miss their contented clucking and the fresh eggs.
ReplyDeleteThey do bring back memories of a more peaceful and serene time in our lives, but they sure do wreak havoc in my flower beds when allowed to roam loose. But they lay so much better.
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