Living with Chickens

Our first dozen eggs from the hens.

The coop proving it's coziness in a crazy April snow storm. I'll be painting it a green color when all the other Spring chores are done.

Love it! We had these cute little tracks through the snow all over the place on Sunday. :)

I love those fluffy butts!

Rudy "scratching" in the dirt with the hens. 

This pile of feathers is the whole flock dust bathing together. The way they relaxed, you'd think they were lounging in a luxury spa. Glad these gals are easy to please!

Rudy making friends with the hens on their first morning with us.

More friend making.

Sunflower caught on real quick that Rudy was the one with food. She shadows him when ever he comes out now. :)

Sunny grabbing a bite while Rudy and the hens hang out around the compost heap. I'll have to build bins for the heap if I want any composting to happen-those hens are great at spreading a pile out flat on the ground in no time.

Me holding a not so happy to be held Sunny. I'm still working on getting them acclimated to being handled. They're super tame about being around people and letting us pet them, but not so jazzed about the idea of being held yet. All in good time, I guess. 

Sunny braving the snow in search for greener pasture. (Or more readily available worms.)

We started talking about raising laying hens about a year ago after Jason read "The Ominvore's Dilemma". I was excited that he was actually considering keeping hens, and did my best to encourage and nurture the spark of interest Jason had expressed. Then came pregnancy, and the idea of getting chicks and raising them to hens that Spring felt (and probably was) ridiculous. We put the hen idea on ice, and worked on getting ready for our own little chick to arrive.

At the beginning of this year's March, Rudy and I checked out a book about a boy who raised a hen and through thrift and hard work, was able to provide a good source of protein for he and his mother, pay for his schooling (as his flock grew) and eventually opened a large chicken ranch which provided much needed jobs for his fellow villagers. It made hen keeping sound really simple-something anyone, even the poorest of poor to could manage to do.

I dove into research mode, and pretty much ate, slept and breathed chicken books/online articles for the next week and a half. Just as I was getting burned out and ready to take a chicken vacation (Jason had burned out about 5 days into my chicken information binge.), I found an amazing deal for a 1 year old flock of 5 laying hens, their coop, and all their gear in our local classifieds. Our ticket to getting into the hen keeping business without blowing a wad of cash on the way there, or spending the whole summer scrounging for free "we'll make it work" kind of options! 

2 days later, we were small time chicken ranchers. Aside from the huge task of getting the coop from the first owner's back yard into ours, and the necessary push through chicken burn out to get up to speed about caring for our flock, it's been heavenly. 

All of us, even Jason, have really been enjoying the hens. Its so soothing to watch them busily scratch around, and to listen to their variety of coos and calls and clucks as they find treasures in the soil. It great knowing that we are no longer supporting the cruelty involved in the mass production of eggs for our nation.  It's satisfying to be in charge of livestock instead of pets. I've never owned an animal who had any other job than being cute, and I've gotta say, I really like this different kind of relationship with a living creature. More of a working relationship. I care for them, they care for me (by providing me with eggs to eat, keeping the bugs down in my yard, and giving me great organic fertilizer for my garden). I love being able to give Rudy (and eventually Julia) a bit of a farm experience even in the 'burbs-heck I love getting that farm experience myself! It's kind of a dream come true for me to feel like I have a bit of a 'hobby farm' in my own backyard.

I don't love having to guard my Spring garden like a hawk (I've already lost 4 kale plants to the hens-but maybe a steady supply of fresh eggs is a good trade off.). We're building a fence around the pine tree bed so that the hens can have unsupervised free range time without me having to forfeit my harvest from the garden that I plant this year. And the prolific poop is not my favorite either, though it's no worse than what we'd be dealing with if we had a dog, and this poop is good for our garden, so I can deal with it.

We've had the chickens for just over a week now, and we're all still glad we have them-I think that's a good sign. This year's animal experiment is going much smoother than last year's. In fact, I think I may actually prefer chicken keeping to dog owning. Given, I'll never have a chicken that could go out on a run with me, but they sure make great backyard companions, and they're way lower maintenance than any dog could ever be.