Did Someone Say Chicken???

[ericad]

Ok, so we got chickens this year. And I love them. They may be my favorite pets EVER. Anyone else keep chickens?

The plan was to get 3-5, so I now have 18

I like to do voice overs while I watch them (Mystery Science Theater style!). DD named them all and, bless her, she can even tell those of the same breed apart!

"What'choo lookin at?" (in the voice of Mona Lisa Vito, cuz she's a hen after all)

 

[ericad]

More of our girls (we have one, possibly two roosters in the bunch, which is good because we wanted a rooster). Some of these are baby pics.

 

[ericad]

Ok, last of the chicken ****. It's an illness.

This is of our rooster, "Charlotte", chest bumping one of the hens to show her who's boss. It was our first indication that she was, in fact, a he...

 

[amc80]

Fun! I believe all chickens have British accents, like in Chicken Run...

 

[ericad]

I love it! I'm giving our rooster the voice of the Grey Poupon guy from that old commercial..."Pardon me..."

 

[justginger]

My BIL keeps chooks - he loves them. He's even set up a couple of webcams so he can check that they're roosting properly before he goes to bed.

I had some out the back of my old house, with an ex partner. They belonged to his grandfather and they were the creepiest, straggliest, mangiest looking things ever. I hated them. I made them move to the other side, away from my backyard, and I got two cute ducks instead. Your chickens look much nicer and happier than those ones did, Erica. I like all their different colors.

I'd like chickens in the future, but it wouldn't work with our dogs. One of our dogs has actually gotten loose and killed a chicken already (he's a retriever/lab), so I can't imagine there's any going back from that.

 

[Skippy123]

Erica, I love your chickens! My grandma had a ranch that I would visit in the summers and weekends and would feed the chickens so I love seeing chickens, so many great memories! hehee I even had a pet chicken before giving it to my grandma. the babies are so precious!

 

[armywife13]

I love it, how neat. If the little one in the last picture goes missing, don't come looking by me..... Such a cutie! Chicken/roosters can be cute, right? Lol.

 

[ericad]

You know, I can't believe how fond I am of them. They're hysterical! One of the group has started making this odd "hoooooonk" sound, sounds just like a goose, lol. Maybe it's the rooster trying to crow? Or a hen with an identity crisis?

Our dogs are sketchy around the chickens too. We solved it by using electrified poultry netting for their run, so if the dogs touch it they get a little pop in the nose. It's pretty effective! This way I can give them a huge space to free range (it equals something like 2500 square feet). But we have hawks and eagles, so we had to also hang bird netting on posts over the run area to discourage aerial predators (we lost one baby to a hawk early on, while allowing them to free range the whole yard, so we've had to course-correct.)

I can't wait for the eggs! I purposely chose different breeds that lay different egg colors. I have white, pink and blue/green layers, plus varying shades of brown and even two that will lay really dark terra cotta brown eggs. They'll be too beautiful to eat!

 

[missy]

They are so cute!!! Cannot wait to see the beautiful colored eggs! Congrats on the expansion of your family!
(sorry about the loss of the baby )

 

[packrat]

I love chickens and roosters! (My dogs name is Chicken you know)

I wish we lived in the country so we could have some. We'd planned on the ones w/the crazy hair on top so I could name them Phyllis, Diller, George and Vivan. Sigh. No chickens for me.

Do they let you pet them or anything? Chickens are so cool.

 

[ericad]

I love chickens and roosters! (My dogs name is Chicken you know)

I wish we lived in the country so we could have some. We'd planned on the ones w/the crazy hair on top so I could name them Phyllis, Diller, George and Vivan. Sigh. No chickens for me.

Do they let you pet them or anything? Chickens are so cool.

Yes, once we catch them, they sit pretty calmly and like to be held. They just don't like to be caught! Some are friendlier than others.

You could always get a little portable "chicken tractor" and just 2-3 hens. They can fit in just about any space.

They also sell chicken diapers for people who want to keep house chickens, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It's true!

 

[m-2-b]

We've got 19 brown egg laying chickens and 2 cows (both are currently pregnant). It took several weeks before our chickens matured and started laying eggs. BTW, someone told us oyster shells are good for the chickens for calcium!

 

[packrat]

bwahahaha chicken diapers! That would be hysterical! I think I remember Kelpie talking about that once before..

Can't have poultry in town, unfortunately..I wonder tho if it was a house chicken and had a chicken diaper if that would make a difference. I love the noises they make..Chicken makes the same noises, which is kinda funny.

 

[nowicanseethemoon]

Erica, I gotta say, I like you even more knowing you have chickens! We have 4 chickens - 3 Red Star, 1 Rhode Island Red. We adopted them when they were about a year old from some friends who moved to a new neighborhood that wouldn't allow chickens. We got a coop and 6 girls, but then lost 2 to a nasty neighborhood dog (he broke out the wire window of the coop by standing on the run and using his head to butt it out). We get 4 brown eggs every single day, which for 2 people is plenty.

Stephanie

 

[kenny]

Awww, how cool!
I want chickens.

My SO won't let me have em.
When he was growing up his family was farm workers so he associates chickens with being poor and lower class.
Personally, I think keeping chickens is very classy!
Sometimes you just have to let your SO have his way. (So I can get my way on the bigger things. )

 

[Begonia]

I adore chickens.

I adore all birds.

We call Princess Zee chicken all the time.

Your chickens are the best little chickens, ever.

 

[momhappy]

I love chickens and have thought about getting a small group (we are allowed 4 within our city limits - no roosters of course). My concern is having someone care for them when we vacation. It's hard enough finding someone to watch/care for the dogs, let alone come over to water/feed chickens.

 

[packrat]

More chicken pictures pleeeease!

Should I add that I have chicken wallpaper in the kitchen, chicken pulls on both ceiling fans, and the cabinets have two kinds of chicken knobs/pulls?

 

[Rhea]

Oh how cute! We need more photos!

Are they difficult to keep? Do you have to put them in at night? Do foxes get into their run easily?

 

[LibbyLA]

You will definitely have to post photos of the eggs. I can see it now. A colored egg forum to go with the colored stone forum.

On our way to our camp, we pass an old gingerbread house with a scraggly tree of some sort in front of it. If it's getting close to dusk, there are usually several large chickens scattered through the tree. They're the type that has yellow feathers on their necks and darker feathers on the rest of their bodies. Just about every time we pass that house, we are looking for the "chicken tree" and one or both of us usually says, "Chicken tree!!!" in a funny voice.

We have not stopped to get a picture because there is no shoulder and no place to pull off the road, but the chicken tree is one of our favorite landmarks.

liz

 

[baby nurse]

Hi ericad, I was wondering if you still had chickens and how they were doing? I meant to comment in your thread ages ago and somehow never got around to it. We have 20 chickens-- 2 hen houses each with a rooster and about 9 hens (Buff Orpingtons and silver laced Wyandottes).

I thought you might get a kick out of seeing this picture. This is my 8 year old holding our Buff Orpington rooster Chicadee, who is sporting a 60" rope of pearls

 

[Jennifer W]

Chickens! I love them!

We have three at the moment, just enough for eggs for us to use and occasionally barter. Our ladies are a white star, a speckledy and a bluebell. They are all UK hybrids, and they all lay different colours of egg.

 

[AGBF]

I had one friend who lived in Keswick, Virginia who kept very small chickens (I think they were called bantam chickens) for years until a fox got them. She loved them, but they had shelter of their own; they did not live in her house. I do not recall their exact accommodations, but they had their own building.

My best friend, who has a home in Maine and one in Connecticut, got three chicks at a county fair (in Maine) many years ago, though. I believe that two grew up to be roosters and one grew up to be a hen. She loved all of the chicks, but one lived to an extremely old age (the female). Miss Peepers, who eventually came to Connecticut with her, lived to be (I believe) 16. She only weighed about two pounds. My friend had to keep her from laying eggs because that put too much stress on her and would have killed her. She lived inside. She had a large crate in which she could walk around. She also came out when no other animals could menace her and cuddled with my friend. She talked a lot. Once during a storm my friend brought her over to my house to spend the night with my daughter and me and called it a girls' night out! She said, after that night, that my daughter was Miss Peepers' godmother.

Miss Peepers passed away a couple of years ago, but no chicken was ever more loved or better cared for! She didn't wear diapers, but my friend always cleaned her up after she "made" (the word my friend used for defecating). When her husband protested, my friend would say that he would like to be clean if he had just gone!

Deb/AGBF

 

[ericad]

OMG what a trip down memory lane!

Yes, we still keep chickens, though some have died (Charlotte the rooster gave his life protecting the hens from a coyote) and we have had new ones come in. I think we're at 15 right now? Maybe? We now have a Buckeye roo named Woody and he's awesome - very sweet but protective.

Hahahahah a rooster in pearls. That's an awesome pic!

Last summer we fenced our whole 5 acre property with 7-strand New Zealand electric fencing, and no more coyotes, deer, etc. So the chickens have been free ranging the whole yard since then. We did have a hawk land in the yard, but our fat cat Azzy attacked it, lol, and he high tailed it outa there.

And we got goats! We have 4 of them - goats are great too! Domino is a full sized nubian (HUGE!) and the other 3, Snort, Cookie and Oreo, are mini-nubians. They're the sweetest and have gone to town on the brush that grows everywhere!

 

[ericad]

I had one friend who lived in Keswick, Virginia who kept very small chickens (I think they were called bantam chickens) for years until a fox got them. She loved them, but they had shelter of their own; they did not live in her house. I do not recall their exact accommodations, but they had their own building.

My best friend, who has a home in Maine and one in Connecticut, got three chicks at a county fair (in Maine) many years ago, though. I believe that two grew up to be roosters and one grew up to be a hen. She loved all of the chicks, but one lived to an extremely old age (the female). Miss Peepers, who eventually came to Connecticut with her, lived to be (I believe) 16. She only weighed about two pounds. My friend had to keep her from laying eggs because that put too much stress on her and would have killed her. She lived inside. She had a large crate in which she could walk around. She also came out when no other animals could menace her and cuddled with my friend. She talked a lot. Once during a storm my friend brought her over to my house to spend the night with my daughter and me and called it a girls' night out! She said, after that night, that my daughter was Miss Peepers' godmother.

Miss Peepers passed away a couple of years ago, but no chicken was ever more loved or better cared for! She didn't wear diapers, but my friend always cleaned her up after she "made" (the word my friend used for defecating). When her husband protested, my friend would say that he would like to be clean if he had just gone!

Deb/AGBF

Awwww Miss Peepers is a beautiful Silkie! I've always wanted silkies - maybe this will be the year. But with the hawks and eagles, a small breed like that might just become lunch.

 

[arkieb1]

I love your goats. We usually have anywhere from 2 to 5 chickens way down the back yard. My son likes them. I usually name them things like Tandoori, Tikki Masala and so on.... I have to admit my son and husband like them better than I do, the excess feed on the ground and their eggs attract mice and rats which in turn attract snakes so that part of chicken ownership isn't particularly cool....

 

[yennyfire]

They are really cute, but I doubt we will be adding any to our menagerie of pets. We took the kids to Colonial Williamsburg last year and went to Jamestown Plantation where they have chicken roaming freely. Well, one took a "liking" to DD (age 7 at the time) and started chasing her. Everywhere DD ran, the chicken followed. DD was terrified. We tried to tell her that they wouldn't hurt her and to stop running, but she just couldn't do it. Sadly, we stood by laughing hysterically and DD has been scarred for life...hence, no adorable chicken babies in our immediate future. Can't wait to see the eggs they produce! How neat!

 

[NTave]

They look so cute!

 

[Ally T]

These pictures are fantastic! I love the pearl wearing feathered friend!

My husband grew up on a chicken farm in Cornwall - they had just over 1,000 Bantams. His parents divorced & the farm was sold, but his mother has always kept chickens in her garden ever since & the highlight of our visits for my children, is always going down to the henhouse each morning to collect eggs for breakfast

Edited to say that my mother in law actually takes in hens from battery farms that have stopped laying & are for the chop. Usually they have no feathers & are very thin, but she brings them back to life & within a couple of months they will start laying again. She's a true hero of the chicken world!