Against my Will, I Think

There's nothing worse than a child begging you for a pet. Better yet, a pet Chicken!  Make that plural.  Chickens.  For weeks I had to listen to all the reasons why it would be good to own chickens; from fresh eggs to joining 4-H and showing them to eating all the bugs in the yard.  Honestly, all I could envision was the amount of work that would be involved on my part.  Between my two kids and my husband, they had a plan and they convinced me to get on board.

I should mention when I was younger, (way younger) I worked on a horse farm and was involved with the daily chores of the horses, cows, goats, chickens, ducks. . . . (allot of work!)  I did own a hen that was a Rhode Island Red that the farm allowed me to keep there.  Her name was Madam.  She was pretty smart.  I could call her name from anywhere on the property and she would come running to me.  She roamed the farm with all the other chickens.

So, after all the begging and hounding I caved.  One Saturday my husband and I went chicken tractor shopping.  Yup, that’s right, no traditional barn here.  Our girls had to have the latest chicken housing craze out there.  Basically, it’s a henhouse on wheels with a run attached.  Attached to the run section are wheelbarrow handles which allow you to move the tractor anywhere in the yard.  I will talk more later about that experience.  I felt like we were purchasing a new car.  We looked at styles, sizes, colors, roof types, run sizes, electric, no electric, window types. . .   You get the picture.

We all had different thoughts on chicken breeds.  Here’s what we did.  We figured that since we are a family of four, each member would choose two from a breed of their choice.  That meant that we would be raising eight hens.  We had to make sure that our Chicken Tractor could hold eight.  Looking back, we should have bought a little bit bigger.

Winter was coming to an end and the local feed store was taking orders for baby chicks.  We placed our order and waited for the girls to be delivered.  When we picked them up they were only a day old.  We had a place to keep them inside the house until they were old enough to be on there own in the tractor.  I should mention to you that from the time they started out in the house to the time we let them in the tractor, one of my family members decided this chicken raising wasn’t for her.  That would be my eldest daughter, Conner Rose.  She said they were cute until they got older.  My husband also hung on the sidelines. I began to see where this was going.   It was me along with my youngest daughter, Jerri Marie who took over the responsibilities of raising these girls.  We have great adventures with them.

With three years behind us now, it is our hope to use this blog as a means to learn from other backyard chicken hobbyists.  We can share advice on raising chickens, talk about coop types, feed, recipes, craft ideas, things that work and things that don’t. So, Welcome to ChickenShticken!  Let's get started.