The Funny Farm: Swingle Chicken Chronicles 2

Here’s a sneak peek into one of the many dilemmas a chicken keeper is faced with in the holiday season brought to you by guest contributor Misty Swingle.

I have a huge decision to make. This decision may or may not ruin Christmas. I have to decide which chicken I am bringing to meet Santa tomorrow.

You may laugh. You may scoff, but the wrong feathery nugget could cause a disaster.

A chicken that screams and fusses could scare a small child. This could cause a generation to stop dreaming of sugarplums.

A chicken that may fight Santa could cause people to turn away from the sacred Chick-Fil-A and actually choose to “eat more beef” instead.

The candidates are Nugget, Shelly, Emu, Chewy, Mr. Eggatha, Hay-Hay, and Princess Laya. Hay-Hay is a screamer and Nugget is a flight risk, so they are both out of the running. Decisions, decisions!

The candidates for Santa photos:

On the left is Shelly. She is a one-year-old small bantam hen. She lets me hold her the longest and seems to enjoy cuddles the most. She has, however, pecked at stray hands that are, luckily, attached to our bodies. The pecks are small and never cause injury.

On the right is Chewy. He is a young Silkie rooster who like most of his breed, has grown a disgusting comb above his beak. Let’s be honest, it looks like a scrotum on his face. He also is a bit skittish and petrified of just about everything.

Hmmm……what do you think?

The Santa photoshoot at the fire department went fantastic! Shelly was very well behaved and Mrs. Clause loved her. This was their first chicken photo. And I am proud to report that no one was pooped on or pecked!

Misty Elmore Swingle is a newbie chicken keeper with a flock of seven and admittedly slightly obsessed with them. She lives in Oklahoma where she works as a special education teacher’s aide, has been married for twenty-five years and has two kids and four dogs.

Many thanks to Misty for her story and photos, used with permission.