How many of you keep chickens?
I've been delighfully surprised at how much fun it's been to watch client Bill Cameron's Hen Adventures.
Tell us about your chicks!
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Sunday chickens...but not for dinner!
How many of you keep chickens?
I've been delighfully surprised at how much fun it's been to watch client Bill Cameron's Hen Adventures.
Tell us about your chicks!
16 comments:
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In my childhood, we kept chickens. We lived on a compound in the jungle. They were a necessary evil. And I mean evil. My most dreaded chore was having to go into the chicken coop for eggs. The hens were mean and feisty. And the smell! I swore I would never elect to raise chickens by choice.
ReplyDeleteBut fluffy, baby chicks are so cute!!! Too bad they grow.
Now my kids take the yokes out of their hard-boiled eggs and carry them around the house calling them "baby chicks." They have no idea. The contrast between my jungle childhood and their slick city living is on full display with that one.
One of our friends just got an incubator and hatched some chicks this spring; they've had layers for awhile but wanted to expand. They live in CT, though, so I haven't seen many of the antics.
ReplyDeleteOne of my coworkers has baby ducks right now and posts their little adventures on instagram: swimming in a tub, or kiddie pool, running around in the grass and dandelions, duck snuggles...it's pretty great!
I would love to keep chickens but zero degrees and I do not get along. Seeing as I'd have to go outside in miserable weather to care for them, I'll just watch the current neighbor's. Loaner Cat watches them too. Murphy, not so much. Our neighbor at our previous house also kept chickens. They came when I called them, loved being around people and were a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteI love watching them. I have no idea why they're so calming to me, but they are.
I've kept chickens for years. Currently I have Barred Rocks, White Plymouth Rocks, Easter eggers, Production Reds, and Black Silkies. Oh, and ducks. In addition to keeping me, and my neighbors, in eggs, they endlessly entertain me. My Scovy duck hen and my Plymouth Rock rooster have an interspecies thing going on. That, along with the fact she has the drakes terrified of her, might explain why none of the eggs she hatches are actually her own.
ReplyDeleteMy Silkie rooster, Buttons, is my protector against sneak attacks from one of the Barred Rock roosters. It's quite comical to watch. The Silkie comes in at a whopping 11 inches tall, while Eenie Meanie, the Barred Rock, is almost 3 times his size. Yeah, he's a big boy. Buttons will slide in with all the skill and grace of MLB player sliding across home plate, taking EM out at the knees before he gets chance to have illegal contact with me.
Gotta say, I love my chickens. You might even call me the crazy chicken lady.
Aren't they cute! I wonder what breed they are. I'd love to keep chickens, but we split time between two states and I can't see flying hens back and forth. Besides--coyotes. My father, who grew up milking cows and feeding chickens, was anti-livestock, but we took in two abandoned hens and let them free-range. They were fun to have around.
ReplyDeleteSo many of my friends have started keeping chickens lately! It's like people are trying to get back to homesteading. I love having friends with chickens (happy eggs!) but I think the Border Collie would insist on sheep, were I to add any livestock to the farm!
ReplyDeleteA few years ago the municipality finally gave city-dwellers permission to keep up to two chickens. Great interest. Many regulations followed, many coops built, many chicken-husbanding courses taken. Then we started getting bears coming right into the middle of town. It's normal for them to be on the outskirts, but not right in the urban core. Turns out bears can smell chickens miles away, and will hike pretty far for a chicken dinner. City council announced that you were still able to keep chickens, but if you did, you were responsible for any damage done by bears. You don't hear much about people keeping chickens any more.
ReplyDeleteI raised chickens for more than fifteen years. I started with Speckled Sussex and they remain my favourites, but I've also had Dominiques, Cuckoo Maraans and Welsomers. All beautiful heritage breeds.
ReplyDeleteWe have over 30 acres here, so we were able to let the birds free range. I loved seeing the hens going about their day, confident and cheerful. We had one wonderful rooster and several evil ones over the years. The chickens have even found their way into my WIP.
One year I set some Pilgrim goose eggs under a broody hen. Pilgrim geese are gentle, intelligent and lovable. They have a high EQ and a sense of humour much like a two-year-old child's. Chickens are great, but my geese were a delight. My life was forever enriched by the years I shared with them.
This must be the client of yours who you tried to convince to use the picture of him with a hen on his shoulder as his author picture?
ReplyDeleteI remember blog reader (or former?) Kathy Joyce having chickens. If anyone knows how she is, I'd love to know. I've tried to contact her through Twitter but she has said goodbye to it. :(
Also, I am thinking of the DoY. She is definitely missing here on Sundays and how she made you hang from the ceiling/chandelier. Too bad she isn't doing this to you - and us - any more. :/
There is a chick shortage in Australia because so many people started keeping chickens in lockdown. Trouble with chook pens here is ou have to give them a lot of time to keep them clean because otherwise they attract rats, which attract snakes. And you don't want snakes. Many are deadly.
ReplyDeleteI've never had chickens, but growing up we had ducks (for the eggs and meat).
No chicks but this picture is reminding me how I got pooped on the head by a bird yesterday. Got in my hair, between my toes, and (despite my mask because I was at a tree nursery), a little bit into my mouth. I think I'll appreciate birds from afar this week!
ReplyDeleteWe have chickens! We used to have ten (ordered eight, ten came in a box to the post office). One of them had a real explorer's personality. The rest were happy enough to stay in their enclosure, but the one kept escaping to roam. It would be gone for a day or two, and then reappear, clucking in for dinner out of a bush. She was scrawny and scrappy and the others bullied her. I kept wanting to write a children's book about her--"The Curious Chicken," but wrote an adult book about a cop instead (no chickens).
ReplyDeleteWhen they stopped laying, a fox got them one by one.
About a month ago we got six new chicks and today they spent their first day in the "big" house, away from the garage and the heat lamp. Alas, one of them was a runt and didn't survive the month, though it had the most personality and courage. She had a deformed beak and couldn't eat enough.
Long story short, we have chickens.
The neighbor almost across the street has them in our little neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI grow the veggies. Harry, you remember his, has four gardens, I have two. I trade some veggies for the eggs I need. I only need them for baking because when I was in the environmental biz I had a client who owned six egg farms. That was enough for me. I eat two omelettes a year and use eggs for baking, there is no way to replace them.
Got the deck painted and the base of the house. In a few days, when the Butterfly Orchids are in full bloom, I'll send in a picture of it, maybe y'all will get to see it.
These are Chocolate Buff Orpingtons. Unfortunately, I have three hens and nine roosters. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI especially love the one who is social distancing. I have Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Silver Laced Wyandottes, and Plymouth Rocks coming next week.
Oh and three ducklings GE arrived Friday. Ducklings are my favourites.
ReplyDeleteMy mother-in-law keeps them on her farm and my toddler was aghast when the chicks grew into chickens. He said "sorry baby chicks." I had to agree that growing up is the worst.
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