I sold a home to friends in Covington, Washington . Soon after they moved in, they got chickens. Then it started…they offered us fresh eggs. We were hooked! Unfortunately, our egg dealer lives in Covington, about 40 minutes from our Lakewood home. At $4/gallon for gas, getting fresh eggs was illogical. I called the City of Lakewood and asked about the local chicken ordinances – 16 chickens are allowed. We decided to get 3-5 chickens. Then I learned how to do chicken math:

April 11, 2011 CRAIGSLIST: 13 baby chicks – lost 3 chickens – 1 gave one away = 9 chickens. The Eatonville breeder talked me into a dozen chickens because they were straight run (50/50 chance of being female). I thought this sounded like a good idea, then we would have 6 hens.

May 14, 2011: Blue Orpingtons were so pretty and wouldn’t it be fun to have a variety of colors in the flock? I couldn’t find them locally….so I got an incubator. Ordered 30 hatchling eggs on  EBAY – 25 didn’t hatch = 5 chicks. (Confession: I’m a little competitive and a 16% hatch rate was not acceptable in my opinion). I believe the poor hatch rate was due to my inexperience and that the eggs were banged around during shipping. Then I found Blue Orpington hatchling eggs locally on Craigslist in Buckley.

June 14, 2011 CRAIGSLIST: Got 17 hatchling eggs – 2 bad eggs = 15 incubating eggs. July 5, 2011: 4 hatched baby chicks

As of today, we started with a goal of  5 egg laying chickens = 25 chickens (9, April Chickens + 5, May chickens + 3, June chickens + 12 potential hatching) – 13 chickens sold = 16 chickens as per Lakewood ordinance.

We have 9 chickens more than the original goal – not sure if more is better in this case…hmmm… I blame it on those darn cute little fuzzy chicks! I’ve been banned from Craigslist for the time being. Let me know if you want some backyard chickens (then maybe I will be allowed back on Craigslist because I have to post the paddle boat).