Speaking of Chickens

This is just one of our chickens sitting upon the head of our daughter, Erin. This particular chicken is a Buff Orpington and we got her when she was just 3 days old. Her name is Fethard, named after a city in Ireland, since we have Irish descent. This chicken belongs to our daughter so she got to name her. At least we assumed it was a hen. Only time would tell, which it has. We can now safely say that she is a hen.

We got Fethard in 2009, in late autumn/early winter so we kept her inside. Her home for 6 weeks or so was a laundry basket in the hall bath with a light for warmth. Because she was inside, Erin spent a lot of time in there. Any time we couldn't find Erin, I knew to check the bathroom. So, Fethard is quite tame. She comes up to you looking for food. All of our chickens think that you should bring them food EVERY time you walk out the door. Why else would you be coming outside? When the weather permits, I LOVE to sit outside with them. I will take a book out there and just sit in a chair among my chickens. It's a feeling only someone else with chickens can feel I guess. I'm a bit attached to my chickens. Probably more than I should be. I don't mind getting up to feed them or let them out, or going out into the cold to make sure the run is closed.

We have had our chickens for almost a year now. We have 4 Buff Orpington hens (that includes Fethard) and 2 Barred Plymouth Rocks (one hen, one rooster). One of our Buff's became broody, which is just a fancy word for she was sitting on some eggs. We did not have any fertile eggs at the time (that's a whole other story if you don't know the difference in fertile vs. nonfertile eggs), so a friend of mine gave us some eggs she knew were fertile. We had 1 duck egg and 4 chicken eggs for her to sit on. We ended up with 2 of the chicken eggs hatching. The others did not make it, which is actually pretty normal. Two out of 5 is pretty good odds, I hear. The 2 that hatched are Americauna chicks.

We have only killed one of our chickens and that was a rooster. He got aggressive and attacked our son 3 times. I was already ready to "take care" of him, when he tried to attack me. That was the last straw! Some friends of ours who also have chickens was going to have a day when they were going to kill some of their chickens and asked if we wanted to join them. Curious George, as we called him, became Chicken and Dumplings.

Sorry, PETA!

At least I know where my food came from that day.