The Funny Farm: Life With Chickens 3

Perhaps those of you with kids mark your lives as before, and after, children. Never having had kids I can relate by substituting the word ‘chicken’ for ‘children’. Many of us have no idea what chickens can bring to our lives before getting them. In some ways, they do resemble children: the stress of caring for fragile beings, the never-ending work of feeding and, of course, cleaning up enormous amounts of poop. The flip side is that they often reciprocate what we put into them: friendship, bonding and love. The poop is still there but the other things make it all worthwhile.

Sally Pichette

My hero! I could see on my coop cams that the snow was blowing into the coop through the vents and landing on the chicks while they were trying to sleep. My husband went out in this blizzard with me to rig up a snow catcher to keep them dry.

Cumbie Homestead

Me using an incubator: keep at proper temperature, proper humidity, turn the eggs twice a day, do not open after lock down, play soothing music for eight hours a day, use proper light and distilled mountain water from a virgin spring in the Netherlands = 60% hatch rate. Brownie here: sits on wrong nest for half the day, stands on the eggs and rolls them around, get all feisty and growls at anything that comes close, stands up and pecks at them couple times a day = 100% hatch rate. REALLY?!

Bnf Mcg

The people of this group have failed me. No one explained the addiction. I somehow thought getting a few chickens was a good thing. So, I built a coop and got some. Then I few more, then extended the coop, then a few more. Now I have plans for a bigger coop with a bigger run, and then use the other coop for a spot to raise the babies till I can integrate them into the flock. It started with Amberlink, then Leghorn, then Plymouth Blue Rock, and then Lavender something. Now my wife wants coloured eggs, and I want Australorps, but someone has RIR close by at a good price. I’m not sure where it stops. Why didn’t someone warn me?!

Madison Shapiro

Sometimes I look at my hen Rockette and wonder how she is still here. My most ornery and aloof bird is the last one standing of my original flock when I moved here ten years ago. She’s survived year after year of 100+ degrees in the summer; off and on snow in the winter, a handful of wild animal attacks, and keeps trucking along. In her prime, she would wait for all the other hens to lay their eggs, somehow move them to another area to hide and attempt to hatch 20+ eggs at once three times a year. It got to the point where my hens would rotate sitting on the eggs so I wouldn’t get suspicious when one of them was “missing” for a day or two. I suspect she was behind it. Here’s to Rockette, keep truckin’ girl.

Gizzy Elam

I came home today, and my husband was apologizing saying my hen was dying. She keeps making this noise and won’t get up. I go to the coop to find a broody hen.

Keren Marin

What are these?!?! Okay, this fat girl doesn’t run and I ran a mile’s worth without stopping when I saw seven of them headed to where I keep my chickens. I think I died twice.