Happy 3rd Birthday Bitchin’ Chickens

Three years have passed since I set out to blog about chickens. In some ways time has flown, yet I seem to have accomplished a lot. I can be a procrastinator, but not when it comes to Bitchin’ Chickens. I am disciplined and set about posting twice a week – week in, week out – even when I’m not quite sure what to focus on.

The first year I covered a lot of my own personal experiences, then branched out to write about a broad spectrum of chicken health issues. My aim was to provide accurate information for folks that usually don’t have access to an Avian Vet or even any Vet that would see chickens.

I love to work collaboratively with folks. I’ve sought out interesting stories from my followers and folks who posted in Facebook chicken groups about health issues they have dealt with. They provided me with the raw material (necropsy reports, photos, X-rays, notes etc), which I turned into case studies. That project has given me subject matter that I may not have dealt with and provided new learning for both me, and my readers. I added 24 more cases to the dozen I wrote last year.

Right from the beginning I started a series called ‘Having Chickens Is A Great Way To Meet Your Neighbours’ and interviewed a diverse group of local chicken keepers including engineers, a retired professor, artists, nurses, farmers, musicians, computer geeks, two clowns and three ministers. Covid 19 put a bit of a damper on in-person interviews over the last year, but during the warm weather when we could distance outside, I managed to write eight more, for a total of 45 profiles.

I take breaks between my paid job as a Health Promotion Educator and producing new material for his blog by creating memes. It started last year during my Christmas holidays. Since then I’ve made over 700; not all of them hit the mark, but so far they’ve kept people engaged. I post them daily on my Facebook page and once a month I curate a collection of 21 that are published here.

One of the highlights of my chicken adventures has been to connect with Dr Vicki Bowes, Avian Vet/Pathologist. She has done necropsies on five of my birds and has very kindly chatted with me about the lab reports and her findings. I interviewed her for six hours for her profile: Vicki: Rock Star Of The Poultry World. I always have a file of unsolved mysteries, necropsy photos, oddities and things I need an expert opinion about. She has generously sat down with me over several days to help decipher the material which I’ve then turned into case studies and articles. I don’t have veterinary training so I appreciate when folks with medical expertise mentor me to produce science-based, accurate information.

And I’m still a cataloguer and list maker. Here’s a bit of a review of 2021 thus far:

233,699 views (cumulative views: 475,807)
164,129 visitors (cumulative visitors: 299,698)
By far, most of you are from the USA, Canada, Australia & the U.K., while the rest are from 175 other countries around the world

Curious about the top 10 stories? (and how they placed in the last two years, if applicable)

There are several ways to find all my posts: 40 are visible on the home page; the others are accessible from my home page by clicking on ‘older posts’ or ‘see all posts’ or by typing key words into the search box (try to keep it simple and make sure your spelling is correct).

So far I’ve posted 368 articles and a whopping 357,119 words. I’m still as chatty as last year: my average post is just under 1000 words.

Going into year number four I have a few asks – if you can do one or more, I would be most appreciative:

Leave me some evidence you were here (like, comment and/or rate a post).
Follow and share this blog.
Follow my Facebook Bitchin’ Chickens Farm page.
Check out my photos on Instagram @bitchinchickensfarm.
Drop me a line, make a suggestion, and tell me what’s been useful or not.
If you see something you don’t agree with, or feel is factually incorrect, please let me know – my aim is to put out information that you can trust.
If you’ve got a well-documented health issue that I can turn in to a case study please contact me so we can figure out a way to work together.
If you need some advice click on the ‘contact’ button to get in touch with me.

Thanks to all of you who have supported me through this last year. I hope you’ll stick with me over the coming years.

All photos: Bitchin’ Chickens Featured Illustration: Sirin Thada