Thatcrazychickenladync
Hatching
- Jul 20, 2025
- 1
- 13
- 9
Hi all. My name is Tara Cassidy, but I am mostly known in my life as The crazy Chicken lady. Also known as Buffy orpington on facebook. I pretty much eat live and breathe chickens, though I don't eat mine LOL. I started this journey in 2019, after I did nails for a lady at her home who had a bunch of babies in a brooder in the living room, and they were so cute, I started going over there frequently in the evenings when she did her treat time before bed and just became fascinated with watching them live there a little lives. So I took a few of her babies that she gave me and that's where I started. Today, I have 11 hens, five big girls and six younger, but not smaller girls, and three ducks. I have a buff orpington, Buffy, a gold laced wyandotte, Piper, I have an Isa Brown named little red, I have two cinnamon queens, one's name is cinnamon and the other is pumpkin, I have four American light brahmas, Jane, sweet pea, princess, and Oreo, and last but certainly not least I have two barred rocks, Henny and Rosie.
These are not livestock or pets, they are my feather children in Christ. And I am very grateful and lucky to have a husband who feels just about the same although not as crazy as I am. Life is complicated, but my girls bring a sense of normalcy and peace to what is turning into a very scary world.
They saved my life. Well mainly Buffy did. She's my oldest and I'd do anything for her. 3 years ago well 4 years ago I got sick, and became bedridden I got Buffy in April of 2022 as a gift from my husband, he was making up to me after we had a fight that he started and he knows my love language is chickens, he happened to be at somebody's place who had a bunch of buff babies and brought me one home. Buffy instantly became my companion and my buddy 100% of the time. She even slept on my shoulder. If I went to the store she was in my pocket.
By this time I had started getting sick to the point where I was bedridden and as Buffy got older, she didn't distance herself like they mostly do, but kept wanting to come back inside to be with me. When she started laying, she laid her first day on the bed next to me and to this day still does it everyday. Actually all my girls do. She let me hold her and cry into her feathers countless times and never struggled or fought me, just sat there quietly patiently. The other girls helped but Buffy really was the center of all of it, just whenever I was just at my worst, when I had gotten to the point of checking out entirely of this life, by my own hand, physically planning what to do after I had written my goodbye letters, there was buffy, screaming at the back door to be let in so she could get up on the bed with me and at that point I realized that they wouldn't understand. My girls wouldn't understand. They would never survive in a normal flock, not the way we let them get away with everything.
It seems trite but that stopped me. Thought that my girls just wouldn't know where I went wouldn't understand why I was gone. I know my husband would try and he would provide for them but he wouldn't understand all their idiosyncrasies and personalities the way I did and they would suffer. And so would my husband. But it was the chickens that stopped me. I had struggled for a year at this point trying to get doctors to listen to me and take me seriously enough to do some blood work or something to try to figure out what was wrong but they kept dismissing me telling me it was in my head or that I was on drugs. I spent two more years fighting to get help from any doctor and I ended up having to move to another state and another insurance company entirely before I could get somebody to listen to me long enough to just run some simple blood work which revealed some very serious autoimmune issues, which now I'm being treated for but I was at my darkest and it was always a chicken there quietly sitting next to me, letting me pet on them in Love on them, and cry ...
When I say a chicken saved my life a chicken saved my life. And they continue to bring purpose and joy and brightness into my life everyday. And I'm grateful for it.
My husband and I lost our home and everything in hurricane Helene last September, and when we got notice to evacuate by a guy on a dirt bike who is trying to warn people that it was worse than they thought and people were drowning and to get out if we could, I looked at my husband and said I'm not leaving without my girls. He didn't even blank just told me to get him in the truck, while he loaded their Coop onto the trailer and we rolled out of there with five hens and a dog and the clothes on our backs. It's been rough, especially having the girls, trying to find a place to stay but we finally have a place to call our own. And my husband promised the girls would always stay with us, and he was the one that ended up getting the ducks when we went to TSC for the brahmas.
Incredibly lucky to have a husband who's so understanding, he not only supports the crazies but encourages it around here lol.
I give them everything I can and let them get away with murder because I love them so much, as I write this one is currently sitting on the bed next to me laying an egg. I work from home and have a shed that my landlord converted into an office for her son who no longer lives on this side of the country so I use it to do customer service work from home, where I can look at the window and see my flock all day long.
It's wonderful for my peace of mind.
There isn't much I don't know about social behavior and basic upkeep as far as chickens go, I know their calls, I know their songs, I know they're complaining, I know their eggs, and I don't even have to see them to know who it is and what's going on. Somebody comes in yelling at me in the morning it's usually because somebody's in their spot. Like right now I have three hands at the foot of my bed yelling because one of them is sitting in their spot. It's a life, it's mine and I am 100% comfortable with it. I don't insist other people live like me, I just asked that other people leave me alone to live my life the way I choose. The first photo is of the girls in the backseat of the truck as we evacuated, actually I took the picture after we got across the river and on the other side of the road into town that had completely disappeared into the river. The other one is of rosie, who wanted to get up on the couch to lay an egg and decided to stand on my husband's lap and sing her heart out. Right before I snap this picture she had actually walked up and snatched a beak full of beard while he was sleeping and he was so gentle he just woke up and looked at her, picked her up and moved her back onto his stomach and said we don't pull beard hair and went right back to sleep.
These are not livestock or pets, they are my feather children in Christ. And I am very grateful and lucky to have a husband who feels just about the same although not as crazy as I am. Life is complicated, but my girls bring a sense of normalcy and peace to what is turning into a very scary world.
They saved my life. Well mainly Buffy did. She's my oldest and I'd do anything for her. 3 years ago well 4 years ago I got sick, and became bedridden I got Buffy in April of 2022 as a gift from my husband, he was making up to me after we had a fight that he started and he knows my love language is chickens, he happened to be at somebody's place who had a bunch of buff babies and brought me one home. Buffy instantly became my companion and my buddy 100% of the time. She even slept on my shoulder. If I went to the store she was in my pocket.
By this time I had started getting sick to the point where I was bedridden and as Buffy got older, she didn't distance herself like they mostly do, but kept wanting to come back inside to be with me. When she started laying, she laid her first day on the bed next to me and to this day still does it everyday. Actually all my girls do. She let me hold her and cry into her feathers countless times and never struggled or fought me, just sat there quietly patiently. The other girls helped but Buffy really was the center of all of it, just whenever I was just at my worst, when I had gotten to the point of checking out entirely of this life, by my own hand, physically planning what to do after I had written my goodbye letters, there was buffy, screaming at the back door to be let in so she could get up on the bed with me and at that point I realized that they wouldn't understand. My girls wouldn't understand. They would never survive in a normal flock, not the way we let them get away with everything.
It seems trite but that stopped me. Thought that my girls just wouldn't know where I went wouldn't understand why I was gone. I know my husband would try and he would provide for them but he wouldn't understand all their idiosyncrasies and personalities the way I did and they would suffer. And so would my husband. But it was the chickens that stopped me. I had struggled for a year at this point trying to get doctors to listen to me and take me seriously enough to do some blood work or something to try to figure out what was wrong but they kept dismissing me telling me it was in my head or that I was on drugs. I spent two more years fighting to get help from any doctor and I ended up having to move to another state and another insurance company entirely before I could get somebody to listen to me long enough to just run some simple blood work which revealed some very serious autoimmune issues, which now I'm being treated for but I was at my darkest and it was always a chicken there quietly sitting next to me, letting me pet on them in Love on them, and cry ...
When I say a chicken saved my life a chicken saved my life. And they continue to bring purpose and joy and brightness into my life everyday. And I'm grateful for it.
My husband and I lost our home and everything in hurricane Helene last September, and when we got notice to evacuate by a guy on a dirt bike who is trying to warn people that it was worse than they thought and people were drowning and to get out if we could, I looked at my husband and said I'm not leaving without my girls. He didn't even blank just told me to get him in the truck, while he loaded their Coop onto the trailer and we rolled out of there with five hens and a dog and the clothes on our backs. It's been rough, especially having the girls, trying to find a place to stay but we finally have a place to call our own. And my husband promised the girls would always stay with us, and he was the one that ended up getting the ducks when we went to TSC for the brahmas.
Incredibly lucky to have a husband who's so understanding, he not only supports the crazies but encourages it around here lol.
I give them everything I can and let them get away with murder because I love them so much, as I write this one is currently sitting on the bed next to me laying an egg. I work from home and have a shed that my landlord converted into an office for her son who no longer lives on this side of the country so I use it to do customer service work from home, where I can look at the window and see my flock all day long.
It's wonderful for my peace of mind.
There isn't much I don't know about social behavior and basic upkeep as far as chickens go, I know their calls, I know their songs, I know they're complaining, I know their eggs, and I don't even have to see them to know who it is and what's going on. Somebody comes in yelling at me in the morning it's usually because somebody's in their spot. Like right now I have three hands at the foot of my bed yelling because one of them is sitting in their spot. It's a life, it's mine and I am 100% comfortable with it. I don't insist other people live like me, I just asked that other people leave me alone to live my life the way I choose. The first photo is of the girls in the backseat of the truck as we evacuated, actually I took the picture after we got across the river and on the other side of the road into town that had completely disappeared into the river. The other one is of rosie, who wanted to get up on the couch to lay an egg and decided to stand on my husband's lap and sing her heart out. Right before I snap this picture she had actually walked up and snatched a beak full of beard while he was sleeping and he was so gentle he just woke up and looked at her, picked her up and moved her back onto his stomach and said we don't pull beard hair and went right back to sleep.
to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!
