Turner_Family_Flock
Chirping
- May 16, 2020
- 39
- 88
- 67
We sort of bought chicks on an impulse. We found this farm store in our city called 'Wilco' while we were hunting around for canning jars and most other stores were sold out.
And when I walked in....I heard peeping.
Peep-peep-peeping.
And me and my dad walked over to a section with...probably a dozen different brooders. And inside, were baby chicks, and in a few, baby ducks and turkeys.
And me and my dad stare at these novogen pullets.
And my dad calls over the teenager working in that area, and he asks what we would need to do if we were to take home baby chicks. She hands us a booklet, and starts telling us about the different chicks.
And my dad goes and grabs this kit off a shelf, a brooder kit, and a card to pick up some bedding.
And we ask the girl if we can pick out a few chicks.
And she hands us this box- a box that.....hilariously enough...looked a lot like a happy meal box. And me and my sister pick out 4 of the healthiest looking chicks with distinctive markings so we could tell them apart.
And my mom asks us what we're doing, and we open the box, and she rolls her eyes.
"Oh my god." She says.
"Where are we gonna get a coop?" She asks.
And we go home with 4 chicks.
And as you might know, we actually have 5 chicks.
Thats because my big sister wanted to get in on things, and picked out a black australorp and brought her home the next day.
Bad idea, because this australorp wasn't brought home with them initially, there was a period of time they DIDNT spend bonding with her, and even a year later- she gets picked on, despite having ended up the bigger hen with softer feathers and consistent eggs.
And we were CONSTANTLY TERRIFIED.
Because everywhere we looked, we saw horror stories of dogs ripping hens apart. Of hawks swooping down and grabbing them, of disease spreading rampantly and killing the flock, and we were always told "don't expect all of your hens to live past a year. They won't. You will almost always lose one, even two of your birds."
And lets put emphasis on the 'ALMOST' part here
When we were introducing our dog to our hens as babies, every bit of information we found was 'your dog WILL kill and eat your chickens. It WILL chase them, it WILL scare them, and your chicken will keel over and die from a heart attack.'
My dog wandered near their coop when they were about 4 inches tall, and we were first introducing them to the space of their coop and the sunshine- before the run even had a roof.
She sniffed the plastic fencing we'd used to build the run
And cluck noris pops her beak out, and pecks her nose.
My dog- an 80 pound pitbull who could easily fit cluck noris in her mouth- yelped and ran away whimpering, and hid behind my leg.
And ever since then, she won't get near the hens.
When we hear a cat in the yard, we send the dog outside yelling 'get the kitty-kitty-kitty!!' and she'll charge through the yard so fast you'd be lucky if she didn't tear the lawn up under her paws.
And she won't touch the hens. Because upon a glance, she can tell the difference between the flock of scary pecking birds that try to ride on her back and the cats who poop in the garden and make us clean up the mess.
My dog is TERRIFIED of two things.
Weiner dogs.
And chickens.
Dont ask me why Weiner dogs, we can't figure that out either, she's just terrified of them.
Another thing we get frequent warnings about: don't let hens in the garden, they'll eat everything and get sick.
Weird note: while growing our garden last year, my dad (because we live in Oregon and it's legal to do so here) decided to try his hand at growing his own pot plant. The only place with good sun was right next to the chicken coop.
Let me tell you, chickens apparently LOVE pot leaves.
They chose cherry tomatoes and pot leaves as their target, and occasionally strawberries.
But they never tore apart the garden. They ate the lower leaves of the pot plant, and hid in the corn stalks while eating the cherry tomatoes we couldn't reach anyways.
And, at the end of our garden's life, we cleared it out and gave it to our hens.
They picked out all the weeds and tossed them out so they could have a better place to roll around in the dirt.
We DO plan to fence in the garden to avoid hens eating seeds, but we're definitely not scared of hens being around something like a half-grown tomato plant.
What else? We were warned about blackberry vines because of where we live.
"They're dangerous! Cut them down if you see them!"
The hens do that themselves. They love the leaves, and they leave a bare, dead vine for us to toss back over the fence because our neighbor refuses to cut down the massive bush of vines that overtook their entire yard.
Oh, we were also told hens are quiet.
No, no they are not.
We were also told that hens aren't very affectionate because they're livestock and not pets.
Well, my hens seem to enjoy the petting. They especially love it on chilly nights during the summer when we have the fire table on. They know better than to jump on it, lest they become fire-roasted chickens, but they like to sit up in our laps near the fire to warm up.
We were also told that the beaks would hurt.
My hen can bite me as hard as possible. Doesnt really hurt. I'm not afraid to wipe mud off of her beak- she may or may not bite me, but it doesnt hurt.
Also- do anyone else have chickens who adore cheek rubs? My hens sit there and calm down and lay against my hand when I cup their head and use my thumb and forefinger to gently rub their cheeks.
Be careful what you feed chickens, they said, they'll get sick, they said.
Me, tossing the chickens a piece of cheese to watch them go hog-wild "Huh? oh, right."
They're like goats, they'll eat anything, the point is to not feed them in excess.
In my experience, the hens will eat anything from worms, to cheese, to dropped mnms and popcorn, to spilled dog food, to carrot peelings, to broccoli, to tomatoes, to dropped cookie crumbs, to yogurt.
The point is kind of...dont just give a handful of mnms to your hens. If they snatch one you dropped by your feet on accident? don't freak out, they're gonna eat it and run away from you anyways.
Also: chickens handle a lot of their own problems with a little help.
When we bought a coop, after we put it together, we realized it came infested with termites. 3 months later, no more termites, because the hens ate them all- we just ended up taking pieces out to wash away the termite eggs.
We saw mouse poop in the feed for like, 4 days. Then I found what appeared to be an empty nest in the bedding that'd been opened up by chicken feet.
The hens literally ate their intruders and we haven't seen any more mouse poop.
We have a TON of feral cats who try to come into the yard.
Cue cluck noris screaming and running at a cat-full speed, knocking into it, and sending it screaming and running over the fence, and then our dog rushing behind her- leaping over her- and chasing the cat to the edge of the yard and barking wildly to tell it to stay out.
Also: chickens are peeping toms.
My mom's sliding door in her bedroom opens to the patio.
And a few times a day, she'll spot a chicken just...sitting there.
Staring through the glass at her bedroom.
So, most of what we've learned is....don't be scared of having hens. They're goofy and reckless and silly and a little broody sometimes but they've been great.
And when I walked in....I heard peeping.
Peep-peep-peeping.
And me and my dad walked over to a section with...probably a dozen different brooders. And inside, were baby chicks, and in a few, baby ducks and turkeys.
And me and my dad stare at these novogen pullets.
And my dad calls over the teenager working in that area, and he asks what we would need to do if we were to take home baby chicks. She hands us a booklet, and starts telling us about the different chicks.
And my dad goes and grabs this kit off a shelf, a brooder kit, and a card to pick up some bedding.
And we ask the girl if we can pick out a few chicks.
And she hands us this box- a box that.....hilariously enough...looked a lot like a happy meal box. And me and my sister pick out 4 of the healthiest looking chicks with distinctive markings so we could tell them apart.
And my mom asks us what we're doing, and we open the box, and she rolls her eyes.
"Oh my god." She says.
"Where are we gonna get a coop?" She asks.
And we go home with 4 chicks.
And as you might know, we actually have 5 chicks.
Thats because my big sister wanted to get in on things, and picked out a black australorp and brought her home the next day.
Bad idea, because this australorp wasn't brought home with them initially, there was a period of time they DIDNT spend bonding with her, and even a year later- she gets picked on, despite having ended up the bigger hen with softer feathers and consistent eggs.
And we were CONSTANTLY TERRIFIED.
Because everywhere we looked, we saw horror stories of dogs ripping hens apart. Of hawks swooping down and grabbing them, of disease spreading rampantly and killing the flock, and we were always told "don't expect all of your hens to live past a year. They won't. You will almost always lose one, even two of your birds."
And lets put emphasis on the 'ALMOST' part here
When we were introducing our dog to our hens as babies, every bit of information we found was 'your dog WILL kill and eat your chickens. It WILL chase them, it WILL scare them, and your chicken will keel over and die from a heart attack.'
My dog wandered near their coop when they were about 4 inches tall, and we were first introducing them to the space of their coop and the sunshine- before the run even had a roof.
She sniffed the plastic fencing we'd used to build the run
And cluck noris pops her beak out, and pecks her nose.
My dog- an 80 pound pitbull who could easily fit cluck noris in her mouth- yelped and ran away whimpering, and hid behind my leg.
And ever since then, she won't get near the hens.
When we hear a cat in the yard, we send the dog outside yelling 'get the kitty-kitty-kitty!!' and she'll charge through the yard so fast you'd be lucky if she didn't tear the lawn up under her paws.
And she won't touch the hens. Because upon a glance, she can tell the difference between the flock of scary pecking birds that try to ride on her back and the cats who poop in the garden and make us clean up the mess.
My dog is TERRIFIED of two things.
Weiner dogs.
And chickens.
Dont ask me why Weiner dogs, we can't figure that out either, she's just terrified of them.
Another thing we get frequent warnings about: don't let hens in the garden, they'll eat everything and get sick.
Weird note: while growing our garden last year, my dad (because we live in Oregon and it's legal to do so here) decided to try his hand at growing his own pot plant. The only place with good sun was right next to the chicken coop.
Let me tell you, chickens apparently LOVE pot leaves.
They chose cherry tomatoes and pot leaves as their target, and occasionally strawberries.
But they never tore apart the garden. They ate the lower leaves of the pot plant, and hid in the corn stalks while eating the cherry tomatoes we couldn't reach anyways.
And, at the end of our garden's life, we cleared it out and gave it to our hens.
They picked out all the weeds and tossed them out so they could have a better place to roll around in the dirt.
We DO plan to fence in the garden to avoid hens eating seeds, but we're definitely not scared of hens being around something like a half-grown tomato plant.
What else? We were warned about blackberry vines because of where we live.
"They're dangerous! Cut them down if you see them!"
The hens do that themselves. They love the leaves, and they leave a bare, dead vine for us to toss back over the fence because our neighbor refuses to cut down the massive bush of vines that overtook their entire yard.
Oh, we were also told hens are quiet.
No, no they are not.
We were also told that hens aren't very affectionate because they're livestock and not pets.
Well, my hens seem to enjoy the petting. They especially love it on chilly nights during the summer when we have the fire table on. They know better than to jump on it, lest they become fire-roasted chickens, but they like to sit up in our laps near the fire to warm up.
We were also told that the beaks would hurt.
My hen can bite me as hard as possible. Doesnt really hurt. I'm not afraid to wipe mud off of her beak- she may or may not bite me, but it doesnt hurt.
Also- do anyone else have chickens who adore cheek rubs? My hens sit there and calm down and lay against my hand when I cup their head and use my thumb and forefinger to gently rub their cheeks.
Be careful what you feed chickens, they said, they'll get sick, they said.
Me, tossing the chickens a piece of cheese to watch them go hog-wild "Huh? oh, right."
They're like goats, they'll eat anything, the point is to not feed them in excess.
In my experience, the hens will eat anything from worms, to cheese, to dropped mnms and popcorn, to spilled dog food, to carrot peelings, to broccoli, to tomatoes, to dropped cookie crumbs, to yogurt.
The point is kind of...dont just give a handful of mnms to your hens. If they snatch one you dropped by your feet on accident? don't freak out, they're gonna eat it and run away from you anyways.
Also: chickens handle a lot of their own problems with a little help.
When we bought a coop, after we put it together, we realized it came infested with termites. 3 months later, no more termites, because the hens ate them all- we just ended up taking pieces out to wash away the termite eggs.
We saw mouse poop in the feed for like, 4 days. Then I found what appeared to be an empty nest in the bedding that'd been opened up by chicken feet.
The hens literally ate their intruders and we haven't seen any more mouse poop.
We have a TON of feral cats who try to come into the yard.
Cue cluck noris screaming and running at a cat-full speed, knocking into it, and sending it screaming and running over the fence, and then our dog rushing behind her- leaping over her- and chasing the cat to the edge of the yard and barking wildly to tell it to stay out.
Also: chickens are peeping toms.
My mom's sliding door in her bedroom opens to the patio.
And a few times a day, she'll spot a chicken just...sitting there.
Staring through the glass at her bedroom.
So, most of what we've learned is....don't be scared of having hens. They're goofy and reckless and silly and a little broody sometimes but they've been great.
