It Started With a Joke (Kind Of)

One night at dinner, I casually mentioned that I wanted to get chickens.

This was right in the middle of all the hype about egg prices being through the roof. For the record, I wasn’t chasing “cheap eggs.” I knew prices would settle down. And I was fully aware it’s actually cheaper to buy eggs than to raise your own chickens.

Still… I wanted chickens.

Everyone thought I was joking.

A few days later I told my wife, Christine, that I was serious.

She said, “No way.”

My father (who lives with us along with my mom) said he wanted nothing to do with them.

Christine then told me if I wanted to convince her, I’d need to prepare a PowerPoint presentation explaining why we should raise chickens.

Challenge accepted.

The Chicken Pitch

That night I jumped on LinkedIn Learning and took a quick course on building a PowerPoint deck with AI. Then I got to work.

I created a beautiful presentation full of:

Adorable chicken photos
Charts showing the “cost savings” of free eggs (ha!)
Completely fake testimonials from our friends Joe & Janine about how wonderful life is as chicken farmers

I even wrote a full script.

The next evening, when Christine got home, I plugged the laptop into the TV and had our two adult kids read the presentation out loud.

It worked.

Not because she believed the math.
But because she realized I must be pretty serious if I was willing to go that far.

The Supply Run

The next day I went to Tractor Supply and bought:

Waterer
Feeder
Heat lamp
Bedding

And on March 10th, I made the big trip to:

Jersey Chickens

14 Provinceline Rd
New Egypt, NJ

I asked for six different breeds that were:

Good egg layers
And looked cool

One important detail…

I didn’t pay attention when she put them in the box.

I didn’t write down which breeds I bought.

And if you’ve never seen baby chicks before — they basically all look the same for the first few weeks.

When I got home, I had to look at the breed list on their website and try to guess which six of the ten available breeds I had just purchased.

That mystery would follow us for months.

The DIY Brooder

We used a large storage bin as our brooder.

I hung the heat lamp from the drop ceiling framing in the basement and tied loops in the string so I could raise and lower it to regulate temperature.

For the first week, chicks need about 95 degrees directly under the heat source — but they also need room to move away if they get too warm.

We’ll do a separate post on our full brooder setup soon.

One Week Later… We Bought Three More

After just one week (March 17) and a lot of late-night chicken research, I decided we needed more.

I had started reading about different breeds laying blue, green, and dark brown eggs — and suddenly six chickens didn’t seem like enough.

So I went back and bought:

An Easter Egger (Patty)
A Blue Copper Maran
A Rhode Island Blue

I also kept hearing horror stories about:

Chicks not making it
Raccoons
Foxes
Hawks

And in my head I pictured that old cartoon chicken hawk from Bugs Bunny circling my yard.

More birds felt like insurance.

The new chicks were a week younger and noticeably smaller, so we set up a second bin to prevent bullying. It’s amazing how much they grow in just seven days.

Family Entertainment

We quickly became obsessed.

We set up a camera so I could check on them remotely. My daughter would occasionally let her second-grade class watch them as a treat.

For animals that mostly eat, sleep, and peep — they were surprisingly entertaining.

What Surprised Us

How fast they grew.

Every single day they looked bigger.

Feathers came in quickly. Personalities started forming. What began as “six identical fluff balls” slowly turned into distinct little characters.

What We Did Wrong

We bought them separately.

If I could do it again, I’d buy all nine at once. Managing two brooders — even temporarily — added extra work we didn’t need.

What We’d Do Differently

Next time, we’d invest in a better brooder setup from the start.

The storage bin worked — but now that we know this is a long-term hobby, we’d build something more permanent and easier to clean.

The New Jersey Factor

At this stage, there really wasn’t anything New Jersey–specific to worry about.

Early spring chicks stay indoors under heat. No one even knows you have them.

The real Jersey challenges — weather swings, predators, and winter prep — would come later.

But in March?

It was just nine tiny peeping fluff balls in our basement… and the beginning of something we had no idea would become such a fun part of our lives.

Looking Ahead to April…

By the end of March, those tiny fluff balls were already starting to look… less fluffy.

They were growing fast — way faster than we expected. Every week they seemed to double in size. Wings were filling in. Personalities were getting stronger. And suddenly those open storage bins didn’t feel quite as secure.

We quickly learned something important:

Chicks can jump.

So up went the screens over the bins.

And as the peeping got louder and the feathers came in unevenly, we entered what I can only describe as their “awkward teenage phase.” Not quite cute little chicks anymore… but definitely not majestic hens either. Just gangly, half-feathered, slightly confused-looking birds.

At the same time, a bigger question started looming:

Where are these things going to live?

April would become the month of serious research — coop styles, predator protection, New Jersey weather, and the ultimate backyard debate:

Do we buy a coop… or build one?

That decision would shape everything that came next.

Stay tuned.