@sweaterthebroodyrooster
Come say hello to Rylee! She's been a member since May 2021 and comes to us from Virginia.
Come say hello to Rylee! She's been a member since May 2021 and comes to us from Virginia.
1. Tell us a bit more about yourself. And is there a story behind your member name?
My name is Rylee, but I’ll answer to just about anything. Ohio is my home state, I now live in Virginia, but I try to visit at least once a year.
I’m happiest when I’m outside. Preferably at night or in a forest because direct sunlight will give me a migraine and I burn ridiculously easy. I greatly enjoy being in or near bodies of water. I dabble a little in photography, but definitely not professional lol.
If I’m inside I love baking/cooking. I make dinner for myself and my roommates at least once a week, plus random baking throughout the week. I recently hosted a dinner for friends and I can’t wait to do it again. I also enjoy drawing, painting and most forms of cleaning.
Unfortunately I can’t do as much as I use to due to fatigue and easy exhaustion from chemo pills. I was diagnosed with kidney cancer during Christmas in 2021. I’ve gone through several treatments, scans, and surgeries. For now what I’m on seems to be working fine, it just makes me extremely tired.
Yes, my username does have a story. I used to have a rooster named Sweater and he did act like a broody hen. He was a house chicken before I got him. He became very attached to me shortly after I got him. I’d often find him sitting at the glass door on the back deck waiting to be let in. I did bring him inside a few times and he’d just follow me around or sit on my feet if he wanted to be picked up.
A few weeks after getting him a received an order of about 30 chicks and had others hatching. I had a setup where I could brood my chicks in my main coop and Sweater took to the chicks immediately and demanded to be with then all the time. I’d often come into the coop at night to find him surrounded with the chicks they’d be under him, on top of him and all around him.
Sweater and I were still really good friends too, he’d run to greet me when I came outside and his little army of chicks would follow him. Unfortunately I lost him in a fox attack a few years ago.
2. Why and when did you start keeping poultry?
We first had chickens sometime around 2012-2014, they were more of my sister’s thing then. We mostly had them for eggs.
We got them again a few times in later years, but ended up selling them. Then around 2019 we got them and kept for the next 4 years. We had ducks off and on throughout those years. I also raised goslings for a friend and hatched and raised keets. We originally got chickens for eggs and then they became my source of happiness so I started getting more and hatching some eggs. I had to sell my flock this year, but I’m hoping to have birds again soon.
3. Which aspects of poultry keeping do you enjoy the most?
I love getting to know the birds and their personalities and just spending time with them. Hatching is simply addictive. And then of course there’s the eggs, sometimes meat, and a bit of pest control as well. It’s all wonderful, I can’t pick a favorite part.
4. Which members of your flock, past and present, stand out for you and why?
Crazy, Ebony, Kansas, and Sweater of course.
Crazy was a buff Orpington hen, she was actually bought with 3 other buff Orpington chicks for my mom’s birthday as they are her favorite breed. We lost 2 of the other hens over a year or so. Crazy always stood out from the other hens. She was extremely social and had no sense of personal space. She loved to sit on my head and shoulders while I worked outside or sit in my lap while I worked in my gardens. There were several times she’d fall asleep in my lap and a few times on my shoulder. If I was ever carrying a bag she’d want to sit in it. Often times when I came into the coop in the morning she’d fly off the roost and onto my shoulder. She liked to have her head rubbed and would fluff up and snuggle into the side of my head when she wasn’t getting enough attention. I lost her in a fox attack. I buried her by a holy tree, made a C with quartz and planted a bit of mint in the C (she loved my mint garden). I have since moved, but I’d like to think her grave is still there.
Ebony is an Asian Black hen. At first there was nothing super noteworthy about her (I mean that in the best way possible). However, she really surprised me after a series of fox attacks, she survived until the last one in which she got a really nasty neck injury. I thought I would have to put her down when I found her, but for some reason I wanted to see if she could be helped. So I setup a place for her inside and treated the wound as best I could and amazingly she did start a recovery. The skin on her neck was mostly grown back in about 3 weeks. Her full recovery took about a year. She became very flighty and stand-offish towards people and the other animals after the attack. I worked with her as much as I could but she never seemed to make a lot of progress. After a long and somewhat stressful move she started bonding with one of my other hens (Kansas) which was huge progress for her. They became a little duo and have basically been inseparable ever since.
Kansas is an Easter Egger hen and she’s just always be a totally sweetheart with me and most other people. Once her and Ebony bonded Ebony calmed way down and started being okay with me being around her, petting her etc. Kansas would come over to me if I clicked my tongue for her and she’d often hang out in my lap while I read or just sat outside with the birds. She also purred when she was petted.
5. What was the funniest poultry related thing that has happened to you in your years as an owner?
For chickens it would probably be when one of my red sexlinks refused to stop roosting on top of the feeder and would fall face first into it almost every morning and have to be rescued by me. She never learned her lesson. Never.
And then for ducks, I currently have ducks living with a friend’s ducks and they are across from a dairy farm I used to work at. They like to cross the road and wander the pastures and hang out with the cows. Well, my friend sent me a picture of two of my ducks intruding on my favorite cow and eating her feed while she was being milked. I am still surprised she allowed them to do that.
6. Beside poultry, what other pets do you keep?
I currently only have a rabbit. I have had dogs, cats and fish. My family has had horses forever, so I have been around them since I was very little. I have also worked with cows for a little over a year.
7. Anything you'd like to add?
I can’t think of anything, so here’s some pictures:
^ Crazy’s grave
^ most recent baking I’ve done
^ my favorite cow (Annabelle) and my ducks stealing her food
^ Sunset over Lake Erie from a paddle board
^ my rabbit, Pigeon
^ Annabelle’s calf, Sally. She liked to sleep in my lap
^ a box of keets
^ some of my art
^ sunset at Chesapeake bay and at the outer banks
^ Ebony and Kansas
^ another birthday cake I made
@sweaterthebroodyrooster
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For more information about the interview feature and a complete list of member interviews:
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I am so sorry you lost him. 
