Pets Past and Present - the Story of My Flock

When I was in my early teens, my family suddenly decided they wanted to get chickens. We had some extra lumber sitting unused in the garage so my father built a cute little chicken coop. It was the exact opposite of every article ever written about good chicken coops here on BYC - small, zero ventilation, sliding barrel locks, and welded wire for the run. We started off with two hens, Plums (Buff Orpington) and Janice (Light Brahma). Plums died that winter from hypothermia. Next spring we got Susie (Golden laced Wyandotte) and later Hedwig (Americana?). Janice died of what I believe was a respiratory disease two years later and we moved soon after. We gave Susie and Hedwig away to a nice family. Thus ended the first attempt at chicken keeping.


When we moved to our present location, we knew that we wanted chickens. We went to Tractor Supply and came home with a Brahma (Dinah) and a Wyandotte chick (Nicolette) and two Pekin ducklings (Perpetua and Felicitas) that were not supposed to be part of the deal.

Next week my mom surprised me with two more ducks, Khaki Campbells (Hildegarde and Elizabeth). In due season they moved out to the brand new Sentinel Coop. The chickens slept upstairs and the ducks downstairs in the run. The pop door was blocked off with chicken wire so that the hens couldn’t get downstairs. Unfortunately…the Brahma turned out to be a rooster and had to be renamed Dana. Perpetua ended up as Pete, and Hildegarde turned into Hildebrand. After that I made up my mind not to buy from Tractor Supply. As you can imagine, there was a lot of fighting between everyone and eventually we rehomed everyone but the Pekings. I have to say that Dana was a pretty good rooster. He was useless as a protector (in fact, I saved him from getting eaten by a hawk that was sitting on the branch above him) but he never attacked us, even in his worst moments.



In February of 2022 we found we had extensive mold damage in the house and so we had to move out until it could be repaired. The two ducks remained behind in the coop and we paid a lady to come and check on them in the middle of the week. We ourselves came over on the weekends to do housecleaning. The mold repair was still going on two months later when we stopped at a feed store “just to check it out”. The upshot of it was that a couple days later we went back to the hotel we were staying at with four chicks: a Welsummer (Lydwinne), a Delaware (Rose), a Plymouth Rock (Prudence), and a Cream Legbar that was supposed to be a Barnevelder (Wilhelmina).

I brooded them in my bathroom and later in the kitchen of the hotel room. By late May we were able to move back into the house and the chicks moved into the old Sentinel coop.



The ducks, meanwhile, had moved into a Pawhut chicken coop and did very well there. Every day they free ranged from dawn to dusk and even got to swim in the pond in the backyard (Bad idea!) Unfortunately, Pete developed a bad limp that slowly got worse. I did not know Pekings and all ducks need extra niacin and it is heartbreaking now to think I might have been able to help him…

Meanwhile the chickens laid their first eggs and in general led uneventful lives - that is, until they took their first car trip. In December 2022, we decided to visit our Grandma for Christmas - a sixteen hour drive one way. I put the ducks in a large dog crate in the back of one van and two chickens each in a medium crate in the back of the other van. Two of them actually laid an egg while we were driving! When we arrived at our Grandma’s house we put everyone in the basement.

The pen consisted of the three dog crates and three puppy gates and it was divided into three sections. We kept them busy with treats throughout the day and encouraged them to sleep by keeping the lights off (but there was still some sunshine coming through the little windows). Despite being down there for over a week, we got an egg from each hen nearly every day! While there we gave away the ducks to a sweet old lady who had a duck rescue. I hope she was able to help poor Pete.


In April of 2023 my sister unexpectedly brought home two turkey poults - a Narragansett (Matilda) and a Bourbon Red (Helen) - from a feed store. I brooded them in my bedroom.

They must have imprinted on me because I could never leave them alone for too long. At night I had to sit and talk to them or they would chirrup so loudly I was afraid they’d wake everybody else up.

After a couple nights I began playing recordings of my church choir singing and that pretty much satisfied them. When the turkeys became old enough to go outside they moved into the now vacant Pawhut chicken coop.

They were furious because it meant the end of the music. When they outgrew their lodgings, I built them a small house almost all by myself that we called the Western Saloon.

It was the first edifice I ever constructed and was the forerunner of many more such structures.


The turkeys were so much fun we said, why not try geese too? So in May, I bought four goslings: two were Embdens (George and Martha), one was a White Chinese (Rita) and the other was an African (Frances).

They were also brooded in my bedroom but went out pretty quickly into the again vacated Pawhut. This they outgrew in a couple weeks so I moved them into the run of the Sentinel. I placed a piece of chicken wire over the pop hole and the chickens jumped into the coop through the side access door. But Lyd was picking on Minna so much I put her and Rose into the Pawhut where they did very well despite the cramped conditions. The name Golden Corral comes from the runs I built adjacent to these two houses.
I had run out of fencing so I fastened sticks to poles and built a rock wall giving it the appearance of a Western corral.


Shortly after I’d got the geese, I thought to myself, why not ducks too? But I wasn’t going to do the straight run thing again. I took my time and did a lot of research and finally ordered three ducks from Murray McMurray: a Welsh Harlequin (Winnifred), a Saxony (Henry), and a Silver Appleyard (Hilda). They hatched in early August and arrived healthy and happy two days later.

I brooded them in my bathroom for easy access to water. The second night they began to cry so I gave them an old shirt which they enjoyed cuddling up in. They grew amazingly fast and it was not long before they were emptying their chick waterer in a few minutes!


Not long after the arrangements of the Golden Corral had been made, the four geese began to outgrow the run of the Sentinel Coop. I began to pester my family to build a proper pen for the geese as well as the turkeys, who were a little cramped in the Saloon. Besides, there was mold damage on both the Sentinel and the Pawhut coops and they were not as predator proof as I would have liked. So my father (a wonderful carpenter) obligingly began work and the big project was completed about a month later. It was just in time! The ducks were outgrowing their brooder and the geese were quite vocal in letting me know they did not approve of their current living arrangements. Even though it is covered by a tarp until we get a roof on, the Muddy Run Apartments is a fine place. The pen is divided into sections for each set of animals with a walkway down the middle. The chickens are permanently separated since Lyd still bullies Minna, though she has mellowed out considerably. I originally had a floor of rocks and treated lumber in the waterfowl area that would be cleaned with the hose, but the clay soil soon turned into a mud pit.

Recently I switched to the deep litter method which seems to be working well. I also filled in the pathway with pea gravel so the name Muddy Run doesn’t really apply anymore.



The journey of poultry keeping has been an incredible experience. It has been such a learning opportunity. We have been blessed to never suffer a real predator attack (though there have been unwelcome prowlers). Finally, I would like to thank

• The college professor who enlightened me about researching chicken breeds before buying
• BYC for all the help and kindness I have received since becoming a member
• My family for hauling ducks and hens halfway cross country, dealing with all the poop in the yard, and helping me build a safe place for my flock

I hope you enjoyed the story of my poultry keeping. Thank you for reading!