@FunClucks
Come say hello to @FunClucks who comes to us from Alabama and has been a member since April 2022.
Come say hello to @FunClucks who comes to us from Alabama and has been a member since April 2022.
1. Tell us a bit more about yourself. And is there a story behind your member name?
My member name is FunClucks because I think chickens are (or should be) FUN! Large fluffy soft birds I can pet. Seriously, I can PET THEM!!!
What’s not to love? And they make me breakfast! Their weird dinosaur feet, crazy eyes, and velociraptor ways are fun too. I’m a super busy suburban mom, working full time and then some, trying to fit chickens in between everything else. We bought an older house/property in a crook of land that was developed before the HOAs got ahold of the area, where some of our nearest neighbors have horses and chickens. I raise both pets and livestock chickens. The pets have names and stories, and personalities. I try not to get too attached to the livestock chickens, because they are dinner.I want to publicly thank everyone on BYC who has helped me in my chicken journey – there’s no way I would have been as successful as I have been without your expert advice and guidance. My chickens also thank you! It’s because of the advice on this forum that they are happy, healthy, have enough space, and have been safe from predators.
2. Why and when did you start keeping poultry?
I had 4 roosters when I was under ten years old, because they were being sold as food in an outdoor market in the middle of winter, and my mom felt sorry for them. She didn’t realize vent sexing was a thing, and hoped we’d get some eggs. We had them for about 2 years before we had to move and couldn’t take them with us. I won a “Most Unusual Pet” award at the pet show because a) it was a rooster and b) it would crow on command. Never had hens until I was an adult. I don’t remember much else about the roosters, they never attacked us, but they wanted little to do with kids. It was super fun to make that one bird crow. (I’m sure my parents loved it too!) Every morning, they would crow at 4:30 right below our window and wake us up.
As an adult, I started keeping poultry in spring of 2022 because my kids wanted me to, the chicks were RIGHT THERE at the farm store, I wanted eggs, and I thought they’d be low-time-commitment family pets (Ha! Not starting out!) that we could all take care of – something to talk about and focus on and have fun with besides the constant grind of work and school. If we had time to pet and make much of them, great. If not, they were perfectly happy to ignore us and eat the food and water we provided in their Ft Knox covered run. We only have about 6 members left of our first egger flock – the others have either died of old age or been rehomed. I didn’t know the difference between production and heritage birds, and got mostly production eggers in our first egger flock, and found that the life expectancy of 2-4 years is pretty accurate.
I did everything backwards to start out – got the birds and then did a deep dive into how to keep them safe and alive. I did NOT anticipate being my own vet. I did NOT anticipate building my own chicken coop and covered run from scratch within 6 weeks. Those first eggs were very expensive! Chicken math hit me hard – originally I only wanted 4 chickens, but in under 2 months I had about 20, including an unexpected rooster. I had never even had a pet bird, and suddenly I had twenty HUGE ones. Most advertisements for commercial chicken coops, and the amount of birds they say they will hold are really talking about bantams, and it took me a while to realize it. I couldn’t even really visualize how big a full size chicken was, nor did I have any idea of how much space they’d need to live in happily. Learning about the pecking order, body language, and rooster behavior all at once was a shock – it was a totally different language than anything I had seen or experienced up to that point. And I am still learning.
I raised my first batch of 25 CX meat birds in January of 2023, up to 4 weeks old in my garage. It was a lot, and even though I did research that time, I wasn’t fully prepared for how much they eat, how quickly they grew, and how different they were from eggers. I felt that if I was going to eat chicken, I should give them the best life possible first, and a clean, quick end. Raising my own meat birds has given me a much greater appreciation for their lives, and caused me to re-examine and re-organize our whole family’s approach to food waste management. Having to process them all myself outside at the beginning of March was NO FUN (I had “help” lined up that didn’t). I had my kids bring out bowls of hot water periodically to thaw out my hands, and ice was forming on my cutting board as I parted them out. I quickly learned to only process in temperatures 60F and up if at all possible.
3. Which aspects of poultry keeping do you enjoy the most?
The thrill of that first egg! The PETTING!!! Half of my eggers are cracked in the head, and half of them are super sweet, and they’re always up to something. There is DRAMA and EXCITEMENT!!! The world revolves around each one of them – they are individually certain of it. I like to watch their personalities and interactions, and I really love it when the sweet ones will let me cuddle them. My first flock of eggers were our pets. They each got names, and had personalities, and were pretty tame, all told.
I decided I wanted to breed olive eggers, and I enjoyed seeing the effects of the different crosses. I wish I had kept more of the first batch of hens – they were sweet and nice and floofy, and laid great eggs. I have raised various breeds in search of specific egg colors, and have bred some myself – it’s a lot of fun to see how the genetics play out in real life.
I also enjoy being able to raise my own meat. Having to process them is my least favorite part, but knowing they had the best life possible means a lot to me. I’m working towards a sustainable meat bird flock, in order to eventually eliminate my reliance on farmed chicken. I think being able to raise and prepare my own food is a useful and worthwhile skill.
4. Which members of your flock, past and present, stand out for you and why?
I’ve had a couple of stand-out flock members, so I will share a few stories.
Ativan was born with wry tail, and was one of our sweetest hens. She sort of looked rumpless. She was an ISA brown, and eventually grew a total of 5 tail feathers that stuck out in random directions in random locations. She was soft and great to pet, and lived up to her name. She passed a few months ago, and I miss her so much.
Chipmunk was named that because of her chick stripes, and because she ran around fast like a chipmunk. She was a real character. She was a Prairie Bluebell that was the smallest of the flock, but didn’t just submit to the bullying, she always tried to escape, or peck back, and so there was always some kerfluffle with her. I admired her spunkiness. I got tired of them picking on her and eating her feathers, so I put her in a separate coop/covered run with a small group of chicks, and she became head hen. Her eggs grew ~30% larger overnight because of uncontested access to food, and greatly reduced stress. She was much calmer, and loved to strut her consequence in front of the young pullets. Unfortunately, a few months later, we had an unexpected flood, and she was one of three birds we lost. I still miss her. She taught me that stress can have a larger impact on flock members than you may realize – I didn’t realize how much of an impact it was having on her until it went away. A more experienced chicken keeper share with me this adage: “Always solve for peace in the flock.” Every time I have applied that advice, my flock has come out happier and calmer in the end.
Sassy is one of our remaining original flock members. Never super nice to or interested in people, she has however been an excellent broody mother – the best broody I’ve ever had. What’s a Starlight Green Egger (production green egger) doing being an excellent broody? Couldn’t tell you, but she’s been great. She’s raised at least one flock of chicks now, and I’m hoping for another this year. She went from lower half of the flock to top hen for a few months because of her bossiness when broody. She even beat up the head hen in defense of her chicks! Nobody messed with Sassy’s chicks. They even got close, she ran them off! She was good about not pecking me when I would check her eggs, and even accepted a late hatchling underneath herself during the day – she heard it across the yard, and started calling to it, as I was bringing it out to the coop. No hiding or sneaking of this chick required – I shoved it under her in the middle of the afternoon and all was well. ALL the chicks belong to Sassy!
Any egger who is willing to happily walk along on a leash for my kids is on the list of possibly keeping as a pet. They love to “walk” their chickens, and only a couple of flock members will “walk” well. We have a couple good “walkers” at the moment. They just walk around the back yard, but man is that fun for the kids.
5. What was the funniest poultry related thing that has happened to you in your years as an owner?
There have been a couple funny things. One time Sweetie (very large buff Orpington) escaped the coop and went into the small animal trap so she could eat the tuna in there. She was pretty mad when we went to pull her out and fought us the whole way.
Chestnut (Prairie Bluebell) randomly decided I was scary and wedged herself inside a pallet. I had secured chicken wire as one side (instead of wood), and she squished herself in so tight I had to turn her around before pulling her out so I didn’t pull off all her feathers or break something. Chickens don’t go backwards in tight spaces well. Still no idea why I was scary. I was just standing there!
Watching the chickens eat anything off the hanging skewers, and steal treats from each other. An item is not desirable unless everyone else knows you have it and tries to chase you because of it. Telling the world you have a desirable item is the first step of ownership. One day I’m going to use that as an example in church.
Chickens’ absolute self-interest. They are the center of their world, and are certain of it. It’s funny watching that belief play out in their daily lives.
6. Beside poultry, what other pets do you keep?
A large silver standard poodle who takes WAY too long to groom and is as smart as my children. He has dog priorities and dog thoughts, but he is super smart. You have to watch everything you do with him or you’ll be teaching him something you didn’t intend to. He rarely barks in the house, but there are two little old ladies that walk down the street occasionally that he feels he must always alert us about. All the other runners and joggers are no issue, but these particular ladies are. Why??? Maybe he doesn’t like their hair? I have no idea!
One day he was alerting for no apparent reason, and turns out there was a utility truck two houses down working on the power lines. I couldn’t see it, but he sure could hear it. Through the walls and closed windows of our silent house.
If the water bowl gets below a certain amount, or is dirty, he won’t drink it. But he’ll lick mud out of a puddle outside, and will eat cat poop. How does that make sense??? I bought 2 qt feed buckets that hang on the side of his crate so his highness could have a deep enough water bowl for his drinking comfort. I think they were originally designed for goats or something.
He’s so tall, you just reach out your hand while standing up and the head fills it. Under all the fur he’s built like a sighthound. He’s the boniest dog who takes the entirety of the recliner when extended, and is convinced the best place for himself is my lap. He doesn’t curl, so when he sits crosswise, half his butt sits on the arm on one side, and his paws hang off the other arm, but let me tell you, that is where he belongs. Obviously the size mis-match is my fault for not having a larger lap.
This past weekend he spent 5 hours on the grooming table while I blow dried him, brushed, clipped, shaved, and scissored him after an hour-long bath (two rounds of shampoo, then conditioner!). Compliance was rewarded by cheese and steak. Finally, we were done! Both of us were VERY done! After the celebratory run around the yard, and drinking and eating, and all the play, what did he want to do? Sit on the cushy couch with my son? No. Sit on my lap. 6 hours of my attention was not enough. He smelled and felt so much better though. And I got to PET him!
7. Anything you'd like to add?
It's been fun participating in BYC, and I hope to contribute more in the future. It’s wonderful to have such a nice community of chicken keepers dedicated to helping each other. I’ve really appreciated the support and help from everyone. There’s no one in my life who knows about any of this stuff, so I’ve really appreciated the guidance and support. Thanks so much guys!!!
@FunClucks
For more information about the interview feature and a complete list of member interviews:
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For more information about the interview feature and a complete list of member interviews:
introducing-vip-member-interviews
