What is more important - keeping chickens or having eggs? Because keeping chickens does not mean that you will have eggs. We have a flock of 9 hens of various breeds that we chose because they were pretty. They are all over 2 years old now and so egg prodution varies. Some days they wow us and we'll get 4, other days we won't get any, even in summer.
I love how different the eggs are. If you buy a dozen from the grocery store, all 12 look identical in size and color. Not our eggs. I brought these 4 in today and each one is a different size and slightly different color, ranging from terracotta to a light buff. We keep chickens because they are fun to look at, they eat our kitchen scraps, we love cooking with our own eggs (when they decide to grace us with some), and now that we have a daughter, I am looking forward to teaching her about that part of the food chain. So we keep our chickens until they die of natural causes, be that illness or possum, and we have taken then to the vet to be euthanized when that is the most humane thing to do. I know a lot of people will think that is crazy and say we should just whack off their heads, but that is not our style and not what our hearts tell us to do.
So I am grateful for the 4 eggs I received today and I will continue to be embarassed when I have to go to the farmer's market and buy a dozen when I have my own flock in the backyard!