Happy Day in the Coop

The chicks are seven and a half weeks old, so today the Walls of Jericho have been taken down eliminating The Maternity Ward. They're one big, happy family now. 

The littles seem to like the new digs because they have more area to roam and new things to explore (i.e. the coop). The big girls are happy because they regain access to the prime dust bath spot. Bossy and Pouncey didn't waste any time digging right in. See above.

Space and the recent torrential downpours are why I took down the hardware cloth separator between the two areas. The babies are getting big. They're not too little to be around the big girls and because they're getting bigger, the little area provided by The Maternity Ward is sufficient, but doesn't seem like a fair amount for them to be stuck in for most of the day. Then, there's the rain. Over the last few weeks it has rained a lot. As soon as the ground dries it seems to rain again, making the main coop too wet and muddy for the bug girls to be able to get a good dust bath. The Maternity Ward side is completely covered by a wooden roof and due to positioning the ground on that side is barely ever wet. Remove the barrier between the two sections and the problem is solved. The littles get roam of three times the space they had before and the big girls get dirt that is always dry and good for dusting.

Last year we had a few little tiffs when the two mini flocks were joined, but today I haven't seen any major issues. I don't know if it's because these babies are bigger than last year's or because they're calmer and seem less nervous, which makes the big girls calmer, or if it's because the big girls have had plenty of time to put the littles in their place while everyone has been out free ranging in the yard. Whatever it is, we've had a happy day in the coop. They're like the Brady Bunch out there. Er, The Chicken Bunch.

YouTube is for Chickens Too

I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. I started a YouTube channel in hopes that I can put together a few videos about my chickies. When we got our new computer let summer, I made a movie out of some footage of our chickens. All of our girls make an appearance and so do Erikson's babies, the bantams, who have since gone on to new homes. As I make videos, I'll post links here.

To find my channel, you can search LovinChickinFarmin in YouTube. Enjoy!

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

Chickens are a gateway drug. You think to yourself, I'd like to have a few chickens in my backyard... I want to be closer to my food... It would be much healthier to have fresh eggs... I can teach my children about where our food comes from... It would be fun to watch chickens pecking around the yard. Then you get a handful of chickens to fulfill whichever of these thoughts you had. And that's your big mistake.  Next thing you know, you have built an addition onto your coop and have three chickens over your city's legal limit. I'm just saying.

Chickens are cute. They're fluffy. They're fun to watch. They eat bugs that would otherwise be crawling around your backyard and eating your flower or vegetable garden. They make you eggs. Some of them are so sweet they act like lap dogs. What's not to love? My husband could think of plenty of things not to love. When I first broached the subject of chicken-owning a little over a year ago, he was not as gung-ho about it as I was (that's an understatement).

I have always liked chickens. My grandfather had chickens when I was a kid. My uncle and aunt had chickens when I visited them in Wyoming (I still remember their beautiful little golden hen named Goldie. I took her picture while she was sitting on her nest.). However, my personal love of chickens was previously contained to inanimate chickens. I had chicken salt and pepper shakers, a chicken candle, a few chicken statues, and a chicken pitcher, but no actual chickens living in my yard. I live in the downtown area of my state's capital city. I enjoy the city life. I generally think of myself as a city girl with a little hometown flair. So live chickens never crossed my mind. That is, they never crossed my mind until I met The Chicken Man. I met him through work, where I found out he had chickens and where he brought a four-hour-old baby chick to visit us one day. I fell in love with that little fluff ball and wanted to take it home right then and there. Not long after that day, The Chicken Man donated more than a dozen chickens for us to raise money for a charity walk for which we were trying to raise around $5,000. A few of us went out to his house to see his 40 or more chickens. As I was driving home from The Chicken Man's house I decided this was a perfect way for me to raise the money I'd pledged for the walk and get a few chickens for myself. I just had to convince my husband.

At first, my dear hubby thought I'd drop the idea. This was just another hair brained idea I had that would never come to fruition. Then he tried putting obstacles in my way when I didn't forget about "the chicken idea." Can we have chickens? How many? We have to ask the landlord. I've said before that I'm a researcher. I didn't spend four years of college studying English and writing papers for nothing. I spent hours on the internet. I checked out books from the library. I talked to the landlord. Then one day he asked when we were getting the chickens. Actually, I may have said something about how we had about two weeks before the chickens were coming and the coop needed to be built. But who cares about those little details?

At first he was fine with the chickens. He liked them, but wasn't in love with them like I was. I'd go out first thing in the morning to open the coop and give them a treat. I went straight out to check for eggs and say hello when I got home from work. He would sit outside with me in the evening or on the weekends and watch them forage and sometimes he'd check for eggs. He wasn't so in love with them that when Erickson, our buff Brahma, went broody he thought getting eggs for her to hatch was an awesome idea. It's not that he hated the idea, it's just that he needed to warm up to it. He looked at me like I was a lunatic when I brought home seven fertile eggs for her. Then I got to hear about how we couldn't keep all of them. First, I convinced him that keeping one was okay (I really would've loved to keep three), then I had him up to keeping two, kind of. Now, we're keeping one and swapping the second one we were going to keep for a Silkie. Sigh.

Do you see the trend here? Well, besides my drug-like addiction to the chickens? Not long ago, I noticed my husband was almost always the one who collects the eggs. He gets them before I've gotten a chance. He's always telling people how great it is to have chickens and how relaxing it is to watch them pecking around the yard. During the work week, he lets them out when he comes home on his lunch break so they get some nice foraging time. He brings them treats everyday. And when our not-so-bright bantams decide to sleep outside on the perch when it's raining, he's the one who goes out and puts them inside the coop so they stay warm and dry (I say if they're that dumb, let them sit out in the rain. They'll learn or get wet.).

The scary part of chickens is they're so addictive that even the reluctant chicken owner gets sucked in. You can't help it. Now, my husband wants to move out to the country and start a chicken farm. I'm down with it. He says it's the only way I can get a goat.

Crazy Chicken Lady

Let this be a warning for people who want to start raising chickens or who are just starting to raise chickens. You're about to embark upon something that is bigger than you are. I say these things because I am in love with the website www.backyardchickens.com. I check in there nearly every day. Okay, every day. I'm obsessed. My favorite part is the forum where members can post questions and other members can reply. People share pictures and stories of their chickens. Other people ask questions about raising chicks, chicken behaviors, illnesses, breeds, and anything else you could ever imagine that deals with chickens.

One recent thread on the forum made me realize something about myself. I'm a crazy chicken lady.

Someone started a thread with the following phrase, "You know you're addicted to chickens when…" Of course, I clicked on it, read many of the responses, and then added my own. But it got me thinking. I have a serious chicken problem. I'm not to the level of crazy where I have any live chickens in the house (though I might be if I were single or if my husband was not adamantly against having a chicken in the house. He won't let me get one-day old chicks - yet - because they'd have to live in a crate in the house for quite some time). Even so, I'm pretty sure I'm already one chicken over the legal limit for where I live, which is inside city limits; however, that one is getting ready to go off to live with The Chicken Man, and another may be going to my parent's flock, so I don't feel bad about it. I'm already working on my husband about getting a Silkie. I desperately want one. You might say, "Well, LovinChiknFarmin, that's not so bad. Lots of people who raise chickens want more than they're supposed to have and favor particular breeds." My Crazy Chicken Lady-ness is not solely based on these two things. I've compiled a list. You're going to judge me.

The following list is comprised of things I own or do that I believe contribute to my obsession.
- Rooster salt and pepper shakers
- A collage of pictures of my family and our chickens, which was a birthday gift and hangs over my bed
- Chicken and Egg, a combination memoir and cookbook (also a birthday gift). Awesome book. Read it.
- I write this LovinChiknFarmin blog (seriously, you didn't see that one coming?)
- Daily monitoring of www.backyardchickens.com (BYC)
- My cell phone background picture is currently of my chickens
- A chicken hat (a hat that when you're wearing it looks like a chicken sitting on your head)
- A Mosaic Rooster that is in my garden
- Plastic rooster lawn ornament outside by the chicken coop
- I keep containers of scraps in my fridge to feed the chickens
- I'm currently contemplating keeping a baggie in my purse so I can bring home any little tidbits my chickens might like…I already take home pizza crusts or any leftover bread from restaurants when getting a to-go box
- Rooster kitchen timer
- Handmade wooden chicken statue on my desk at work (there are two more at home)
- Multiple chicken/rooster statues throughout my house
- Chicken coffee mug
- Chicken serving platter
- Chicken pitcher
- Basket made of chicken wire with a metal chicken on each side
- Eggs cookbook
- Borrow any chicken book I come across from the library
- Occasionally check out Mypetchicken.com to see what kinds of hatching eggs they have for sale or to see pictures/info on different chicken breeds
- Buy Chickens magazine published by Hobby Farms
- Chicken hand towels (multiple!)

Hello. My name is LovinChiknFarmin and I am a Crazy Chicken Lady. It's a disease, really. A chronic disease that you just have to learn to live with. Well, I'm off to BYC to see what all the peeps are up to today...