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Saturday, 22 September 2012

Free-Range Chicken...and what should I do with them?

Yesterday, when i went to the Kulim Market, I bought 5 chicks on a whim....I did not plan ahead to buy them, and suddenly I realized when I got home I have 5 cute chicks with me.... (at this point of writing, they are 11 day old chicks, an 'ayam kampung' type)  Wow....what was I thinking?
Mr Man (my hubby) was certainly not very pleased....He kept asking me, how am I going to raise them, where am I gonna put them and keep reminding me that those chicks 'are my responsibility'...I really did not know what to do as I have never raised chicken in my life!! Luckily,  there was a really large clothes bucket  that I can use as their temporary home..which  I lined with old newspapers and placed them in the toilet, well, just to keep them safe from hungry predators like cats and lizard.
After that, last night I keep looking for a solution to my adopted chicken problem:

1) I can just give them away to people who have the time and love to keep them
2) I can also TRY to raise them myself, and maybe after 7 months or so I can have roast chicken on the table, yeah?
3) Raise them as an experiment and one day open a chicken farm? (that was my business sense  talking)

......and what about the constant predators?
We constantly have stray cats lingering around in our garden. There is one large tom-cat which we nick-named Hitler (due to his black spot just below his nose that resembles his namesake)...Yesterday, he kept on patrolling our back kitchen, probably because he was getting a whiff of the chick's smell...
There are large and small lizards as well, which live in the drainage area near our house..We see them around but usually just leave them alone as they never cause any harm to us. But they could come to our house and eat those chicks now that we have them, yes?

The solution that I could think of is to build a coup.  But, having chickens would attract flies (from the chicken manure)....Arghh, don't know what to do.... Do I have the time for them? Just incase that any of you have any idea or could share some insight  or tips, please do pen me a line or two...thanks..



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