The Chicken Post
By Monica on October 12th, 2007
Per request, here are some chicken photos of another kind! It rather fascinates me that whenever guests come over, they are either absolutely terrified of chickens, or think they are the coolest thing ever. And seemingly everyone has a chicken story of their own to share!
Chickens make excellent guardians. Here they are protecting the driveway from insects:
This is Burt the House Chicken; she is a Barred Rocks. Burt is technically a girl, despite her name. A few years back Burt injured her leg and was unable to walk so the others picked on her. So Burt came in the house and lived in the basement until she healed. She’s one of the friendliest hens and loves to sit on your lap and have her ears rubbed.
This is Henny Penny Pudding Pie; she is a Black Australorp. Henny enjoys stale bagels, grasshoppers, and long walks in the soybean fields. She’s very curious and one of the first to greet you when you enter the chicken run.
This is one of my rescued hens, we call her “the Muppet chicken” for obvious reasons. She is a Feather Footed Bantam White Silkie. Her ears are blue, she lays tiny little off-white eggs, and she loves to protectively sit on them. She would make a wonderful mother except that the rooster has no interest in her, so her eggs are not fertile and would never hatch. We don’t tell her that and let her sit on them as long as she wants anyway!
Presenting Seniorita Chicken Butt! She’s a White Orpington, not the friendliest in the flock, but a gorgeous girl.
Baby Peepers the first day I got them. (This is before I knew better and I actually bought chickens instead of rescuing them.)
Roo the rooster. Roo was supposed to be female, but it didn’t turn out that way and lucky for him he was mis-sexed and therefore avoided the woodchipper. Roo tries to kill my brother and barely tolerates Ray. He has chased the electric meter reader out of the yard, and two Jehovah’s Witness’ who were earnestly warned but would not listen to reason. He’s never tried to attack me, maybe because I am always threatening to turn him into Rooster Soup. (He doesn’t know rooster is not part of a vegan diet!) In any case, he’s cool as hell. He’s about 12 pounds and adores his hens. He cackles to them when he finds something good to eat instead of eating it himself. He watches over them while they forage and keeps the dogs on their side of the fence!
So those are them! The original chickens I bought from a hatchery must be about 6 years old now, most of them healthy and going strong! We have lost some along the way to predators, which is very sad, but unavoidable in the country despite elaborate efforts to erect predator proof housing. I’ve learned to accept it as part of the natural cycle, certainly much more natural than ending up in a KFC bucket at 6 weeks of age.
They have a 12×12′ insulated coop complete with windows, nesting boxes, and lots of wood shavings. This opens up to a 99% predator proof 25×25′ ‘chicken run’ layered with gravel that they need to digest their food. This opens up to another 30×30′ ‘chicken yard’ that is natural brush for them to forage through, and dirt for them to dig holes and dust bathe in. They only go out there under supervision right now because we have a nasty hawk on the prowl. Finally, they get free run of the front yard when I’m out there to keep a close eye on them.
As for their eggs, none of my hens (except the Muppet) have any desire to sit on eggs or hatch them, called being “broody”. This instinct has been bred out of them as they were designed only to be laying machines. They lay an egg, jump off it, and never look back. So we collect the eggs and feed them back to the hens, or to the dogs and cats.
Hope you enjoyed my chicken post! Please share your chicken stories or chicken questions; I know you have some!
Kumudha says:
These look so adorable!
Thanks for the pictures.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:10 am
zu says:
Roo looks badass!
How many eggs a day do the chickens lay?
AND I had no idea that one can “rescue” chickens…sure you hear about people dumping puppies and kittens…but chickens? What…like the farmer suddenly changes his mind and doesn’t want to be a farmer anymore?
OMG! Petfinder has chickens?!
October 12th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Monica says:
In their prime, the chickens would lay an egg nearly every day. Now that they’re older, there are 8-12 eggs per week from about a dozen hens. They stop laying entirely in the winter.
There are lots of chickens needing rescue! They are neglected and seized or most commonly, simply left behind when someone moves away.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
VeggieGirl says:
that’s so incredible that you’ve been able to save so many chickens!! the little baby chicks are beyond adorable :0)
October 13th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Mihl says:
I really enjoyed reading this post! Thanks for sharing it.
October 16th, 2007 at 1:09 am
bazu says:
Thank you, thank you for this post! I can’t get over how interesting and adorable chickens are. The little Muppet Chicken is driving me insane with how cute she is! Unfortunately, I don’t have many chicken stories to share. My mom’s aunt had a couple of roosters, and some of my earliest childhood memories involve visiting her house, and hearing them crow. I love that sound to this day. On Farm Sanctuary, we met a rooster who has been traumatized and thus crows every few minutes. Poor lil’ guy. Again- love your chickens, I wish I could play with them!
October 16th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Vivacious Vegan says:
What an awesome post. I’ve always had a weird fascination with chickens. I think they’re so full of personality.
I seriously want to drive up to your house this weekend to play with them.
Like Bazu, I am so in love with your little muppet chicken. She’s adorable. I just want to hold and love all over her.
The stories of your rooster are really great. He has a role and a job and he fills both very well. Nature is so incredible.
I can’t believe a hawk would want to snatch one of your chickens. That seems a little canibalistic but I do remember my mom’s chickens (she had them after I had already moved away to college) would peck at each other (violently) if one of them got a cut or a sore and it bled.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Diane Onto says:
We just lost a feather footed white bantan silkie and the whole family is devistated. She was the only one we had and we found her on the pol cover twitching with blood coming from her nostrils and beak, She was in a state of shock and there were feathers everywhere. We live on the water and surise it must have been a hawk, We rushed her to the aviarian vet and he said her prognosis was not good. He said that she would probably not make it, ther was definitely bleeding on the brain and neurological damage, We ad her put down and the whole family is in mourning, even our dog, who is a bird dog that became buddies with her. She had such a great personality and interacted like a family pet. She would talk to us and shrill when I came home from work. It is a sad day for all of us today. Would you have any ideas what animal would grab her by the head ( she had a large gash at the top of it ) and leave her after hurting her like that? We are still in shock. We have left her out many times in our fenced yard, thinking there were not many predators around.
December 28th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Monica says:
Diane, I’m so sorry for your loss. I know as well as anyone how much personality these guys have and how much a part of your family they can be.
My best guess for the predator would be a wandering cat or dog. Raccoons, weasels, and skunks always go for the head, but the Bantie would have had to escape to survive, and the odds of her escaping the attack of those predators are pretty slim. A hawk or owl would have never left her alive, or even left her body behind.
A lot of hens being attacked simply lay there playing dead. So it’s quite possible that a cat or dog came around, gave her a swat or tossed her around a little, and then left when it stopped being interesting to them. Stray/feral dogs usually take and eat the body, so if you think it could have been a dog, I’d wager the dog wasn’t very hungry or aggressive, but curious and instinctual.
I’ve been in your shoes, and honestly, you will likely never know what happened to her. I am sorry.
December 28th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Liz² says:
your chickens are so badass!! and they have the best names ever!! (Henny Penny Pudding Pie? Classic. XD)
January 21st, 2008 at 7:37 pm