Written by Heather Zubiate
s every chicken keeper knows, at some point in your career you're going to experience and even succumb to the phenomenon know as "chicken math". It is almost inevitable. So you smugly think that you're immune, do you? Well, just you wait! For those of you who are not familiar with this term, it light-heartedly describes an alarming situation where one chicken seems to multiply into 4, and 4 chickens come to be equivalent to 8 chickens, and then the 8 chickens are really the same as 16, and so on. Chicken math is a nice term to cover up a darker behavior. Dear reader, hoarding is no respecter of persons, this problem --eh-- situation can happen to anyone (yes, even you!) and with anything, including chickens. And yours truly is not immune to this desire. I too, am currently flirting with this strange need to accumulate large numbers of gallus domesticus. It's just what happens when you want more of a good thing. Right? Right!
If you recall, I acquired 4 chicks a few months ago in a ill fated attempt to get my broody hen, Olive, to "snap out of it" by giving her what I though she wanted, some chicks to take care of. Instead, I ended up with 4 cute little chicks to raise after she rejected them. Then, I figured why not get 4 more little chicks, since I only had 3 aging hens who weren't laying as much anymore. Only 4 more, this is reasonable, right? Especially since one of my first hens, Buttercup (a.k.a. "Butterdud" for her deplorable lack of egg laying) had succumbed to some sort of oral parasite that kept her from eating, soon after I acquired the chicks . Her heartbreaking demise meant that I now only had 2 mature hens left -- Olive and Blossom. I honestly can't remember the last time Blossom laid an egg, so even more reason to replace her with some fresh recruits. That is the nature of the egg game, dear reader. But now I find myself wrestling with the desire of wanting MORE! Partially because I want to replace the older girls, but also because I want to collect some different breeds for their colorful eggs! Who wouldn't want a rainbow of eggs in their collection basket? The breeds I'm currently hankering for are Welsummers and Marans for their deep rich chocolaty brown eggs. And some Easter Eggers for their blue, green, pink, and maybe even yellow eggs!
To quell my growing desire, I just allowed myself 4 more chicks three weeks after the first batch of 2 Rhode Island Reds, and 2 Plymouth Barred Rocks. I got 2 Amerucanas and 2 Golden Laced Wyandottes. There! That should be enough, but it isn't, I can't let go of the need -- Yes! --need for those Wellsummers, Marans, and Easter Eggers. I'm doomed to performing chicken math! So, my original intent, to just get four chicks to indulge my broody hen's motherly instinct, has turned into me falling off the path of reasonable restraint, down the slipper slope of chicken math. If you lost count, dear reader, I now have 10 chickens, which will somehow equal 16 in the near future. Or maybe 18, yeah, 18 hens, which will only be 10 chickens (wink wink). Gotta love chicken math!