We are on our second homemade angel food cake this month. A unique thing about these cakes is that one recipe takes nearly a dozen eggs — something I have in great quantity right now.
When it looked like eggs might be hard to come by and trips to grocery stores might be few and far between, I decided to purchase chickens.
Curiously, I didn’t consider the purchase of a milk cow which might have been beneficial. We love heavy whipping cream on our angel food cake. Wisely, I went with chickens. The kids will gather eggs for me but they wouldn’t milk a cow if I was gone for the weekend.
It really doesn’t take much to have a few chickens. I purchased a chicken coop kit at a store in Norfolk that Matt and Maddie put together in a couple hours.
It’s about the size of a doghouse and includes perching rails, a caged-in eating area and three nests. Even though we live on a farm, I think a person living in town could handle a couple chickens in one of these coops — as long as your neighbors don’t mind a little loud clucking.
I think they cluck when they lay an egg and want to brag about it, but they are a little noisy.
I suppose they wouldn’t be any more annoying than a barking dog and maybe less so. A rooster in the mix would absolutely be noisier so a person would need to stick with hens.
It took these hens a while to get acclimated but now we’re getting about a half dozen eggs a day from seven chickens. I’m not sure who the slacker is.
I’ve been letting the chickens out to wander around during the day, locking them up again at night when foxes and other wild animals are roaming the area.
Our miniature beagle doesn’t seem to mind sharing space with the chickens, although he seems a bit envious about some of the bread scraps I give them. I told him if he contributed eggs to the family, he’d get old bread, too.
A person does have to worry about the high wind warnings as chickens seem like they could be carried aloft pretty easily.
They’re smart enough to hang out in their chicken coop when it rains. I attached a piece of plywood on one wall one night when bad weather was predicted.
I haven’t done that since as the wind might catch the whole chicken coop and take it and the chickens to Stanton County.
In the meantime, I need to make more omelettes, custard pies and angel food cakes.
Bagikan Berita Ini
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