From the life of a chicken fan

[MotherofOrpies]

Since I am new to this website, and I love reading stories, I thought I might share my life about my chickens ( and a little bit about my life in general too) here also , I did post some stuff already in the introduction part of this website, and since it is a lot of stuff to write about, I will write it down time after time.
let me start at the beginning, I kind of grew up on a farm, we had cats, a dog, sheep and a few chickens, back then I wasn’t really interested in chickens, I had to feed them, and pluck the freshly beheaded chickens our father thrust into our unsuspecting hands ( I guess almost everybody has experienced the moment where a headless chicken runs around ?! ) , we also had a pair of ducks and a pair of bantam chickens, since back then, there was no internet, things did not end well for all our feathered animals... lets start with the ducks... we got a pair, the female started laying eggs, and after a while, she was killed ( not intentionally) by visiting neighboring kids who wanted to look at her, then, when she tried to leave the barn they quickly shut the gate on her, breaking her neck in progress we found her dead after coming home from our grocery shopping (40 miles away from home) , inexperienced as I was , I tried to save the hatching eggs and incubate them by myself by putting them in bed with me at night and storing them in a cloth hamper during the day ( I was at school), after a strange smell started ro emate from my room, my parents investigated, and found a collection of rotting duck eggs in my hamper when I came home that day, they told me my experiment was over ...as stories in real life goes, there wasn‘t a happy end for the lonely drake either, we gave him to friends ( we couldn’t eat him ourselves) and they complained he had pin feathers all over and had been a stringy meal

 

[Callender Girl]

Gee, after that beginning with poultry, it's a wonder you wanted to have anything else to do with them at all! Glad you overcame the rough beginning. And, hey, you weren't the first kid who thought she might be able to personally hatch eggs (no more details will be forthcoming!!).

Thanks for sharing your story!

 

[MotherofOrpies]

So, next were our meat chicken, in my opinion ugly white creatures which ate a lot and after my father axed them it was my sister duty and mine to pluck and clean them, back then, nobody asked if we wanted do do it, you just did it. But my father lost his taste for chicken keeping after having to ax all of the chickens, so after that, we bought them at the store again.
we also tried our hand at bantam chickens, we got a hen and a rooster. Since ( again, no internet) we didn‘t know how to feed them right, the hen started to lay shell less eggs, we gave her crushed egg shells, but she then decided she wanted to brood, in a hole in the barn, we found out, when our rat and mice killing dog dived into the hole and pulled the hen out, dead the rooster was lonely, so we got him company with a regular hen, she, being much bigger than he, terrorized him into his early grave, he also had a bad case of scaly feet, which we treated ( back then, farmers often used to do it) with a diesel footbath, I fear that also hastened his demise. We gave back the hen to her former owner, and that was my last contact with chickens for the next 30 years

 

[MotherofOrpies]

30 years later, my kids had a school projekt, collecting and pressing tree leaves, one of my neighbors had special trees, and when we asked him if we could collect some, he invited us in to his garden, and running around there were cute little silkies, before that, I didn’t even know there were chickens like that out there! He told me keeping chickens was easy, and when we went home, we took along a gift of 6 Silkie eggs that was the beginning of my chicken trip one week later, I met him at the farmers market, buying EGGS !!! I asked him, what about your Silkies?! He told me a fox had gotten into his chicken run and killed ALL of his chicken so that is when I found out, not only humans like chickens ...

 

[MotherofOrpies]

I started researching chicken breeds, and decided on Marans cos of their dark brown egg shell color, Bresse, for being proficient layers and a good meat bird too and last, pheasant coloured Orpingtons , just to look at and enjoy . First mistake I made, bought a too cheap coop, my hubby is NOT a handyman, and I do what I can ( like changing light bulbs ) but am not very good at building stuff either, so when our lokal store offered a coop, I bought it, big mistake!! First off, the wood wasn't treated, so I had to buy chicken friendly paint (expensive !) , then, after we had the coop standing, a friend ( who is an architect) told us the wood had to stand on slabs and between slabs and wood , we had to put roofing felt... sooo, I got 4 of us to lift the coop while I and another one of my kids put slabs and roofing felt under the coop, let me tell you, that was the beginning of my family not being a fan of chickens after 1 year, the cheaply made wooden roof came apart ( I think the slats were just glued together) and pierced the roofing felt, I wouldn't have contacted the supermarket , but my really nice father-in-law really advised it, so I did it ! Thank God we had treated the wood ( they wanted pictures) so I got another ( cheaply manufactured) wooden roof, but this time I bought ( another expense) roofing shingles, and it has survived the last years and is still standing, so hooray!

 

[HollyWoozle]

Wow, what a beginning! Do you have some photos of your flock now?

 

[MotherofOrpies]

Chickens greeting me, as usual, starving!!! Here are my gold laced Orpington, the splash and blue chickens are dark green laying Silverudd blah , the pure white chicken is a Schijndelaar, a green laying chicken breed from the Netherlands, and the little chicken on top is a mix between Araucana and bantam Javense chicken, also laying green eggs, the cut off blue laced chicken on the left is from 2013 and a mix between german Langschan and Bresse

 

[MotherofOrpies]

Then I got the chickens, I was planning on getting 6, and if we went on vacation and didn’t find anybody to look after the chickens, I thought they could rest in the freezer, and after the vacation, we would get new ones the moment I got them, I found out I couldn’t put them in the freezer, they had just turned into pets!!! So, I got 2 Maran ( hybrid, as I later found out) then 2 Bresse chickens, they gave me a mix chicken for free ( it took 9 months to find out it wasn’t a feared rooster) so I already had 1 more chicken than planned, and then I had ordered 1 rooster and 2 pheasant Orpington, the breeder called me, he had an extra hen, did I want her?! What a question, of course I did, sooo.. another extra chicken moved in

 

[ButtonHoarder]

Well, you had a rocky start, but it looks like you've got some happy chickens!

 

[MotherofOrpies]

here is a picture of my dog this morning, it was raining quite hard, but she loves going outside, rain, snow, it doesn’t matter, what. She is 3 years old and has enough energy for 2 dogs she is a mix between Australien shepherd and Tervueren ( Belgian sheepherding dog breed)