@SkyAJK
Come say hello to @SkyAJK who comes to us from Australia and has been a member since April 2024.
Come say hello to @SkyAJK who comes to us from Australia and has been a member since April 2024.
1. Tell us a bit more about yourself. And is there a story behind your member name?
I love chickens, suffering from chicken math and have been having backyard chicken for over 7 years now and on going.
Currently I have 9 standard side hens and 4 bantam, but I do not count the 4 bantam so really I only have 9 chickens.
My member’s name is the combination of my dog and chickens’ initials.
2. Why and when did you start keeping poultry?
Chickens came to me by chance and they came to my dreams.
My first experience with chicken was when I was about 8 years old.
My 6 years old brother wanted a chicken and my parents got 1 chick for him. Now that I think about it, the chick must be around 5 weeks old. This chick followed us everywhere like a dog.
One hot summer morning, my brother was looking for his baby chick, we woke up our dad looking for our baby chick, dad turned over on his side and behold the baby chick was flat under his back. Needless to say, it was hell.
As an adult, I had 2 dreams of a baby chick looking at me with sad eyes. Each of those dreams were decade a part from each other, but still having chicken did not enter my psyche.
At my grandma’s nursing home they had chicken hatchery display every Easter. I often looked at the display of eggs in a glass incubator, the newly hatched chicks were so cute. I thought about having chickens, but it is too much work and that was not something I wanted to do.
Many years past without any thought of chicken. One year while I was looking at hatching chicks for Easter display, the nursing home offered me to adopt some of the chicks, I took 2, a few days later they asked me to take more and I ended up with 6 in total.
They were around a week old and that was how fluffy butt chickens entered my life.
We began our journey of taking care of our 6 baby chicks, working out what coop to buy, build their run, installed their enclosure, shopping for chicken coop, watched them grow new feather, balancing on the fence, dirt bath, tiny feet dug up our garden, chest bum each other and all the funniest things that chickens do.
We spend more time in the garden, and whenever we were busy inside the house, our chickens would knock at the door and out we came. We long to be home to be with our chickens & they were so happy to see us home.
No more travel/holiday/vacation for us since.
3. Which aspects of poultry keeping do you enjoy the most?
Broody hen sitting on her eggs.
Caring for mother hen- making sure she gets out to eat and stretch her legs. See baby chicks under mother hen.
Steal baby chicks from mother hen for kisses.
Baby chicks’ fluffy feather and just about everything else baby chicks.
Watch mother hen and fluffy kids doing their things.
Rooster’s dance – one leg curves up, dance in circle with one leg while wings moving up and down so beautiful, rooster really is a magical being.
Enjoy everything about poultry keep except being Sherlock Holm to investigate the cause of ill health.
I am poop and vent inspector, these positions I hold with precision and seriousness.
4. Which members of your flock, past and present, stand out for you and why?
In the past I had an Isa Brown hen named Leader. Leader was born knowing, she was quiet, gentle, supportive of her flock, respect by her flock including the rooster.
I think of her often while she was with us and after she passed away. I often thought that if I had children, I would want a daughter just like her.
Presently I do not have any exceptional hen like my Leader. They all have their specialty.
5. What was the funniest poultry related thing that has happened to you in your years as an owner?
My rooster was happily sitting on my lap, I was happily patting his back feather and suddenly I felt warmness on my lap, the lap that he was sitting on, I lifted him up and there it was a nice massive poop to keep me warm.
Witnessed my rooster found his way into adulthood. First time, he jumped on his hen’s back with one leg, he stood on her back and waiting for something to happen, we were anxiously telling him to put on the other leg as well and waiting with him, nothing happened, she knocked him off and walked away. We were tempted to let him watch a youtube video of how to.
When he got older, he jumped on his hen’s back with his head to her tail, and at time he cannot balance himself on her so he gave up and walked away. We hugged him and told him that it was just a cycle of life.
6. Beside poultry, what other pets do you keep?
2 small dogs and they protect the family feather members.
7. Is there anything you'd like to add?
I am suffering from chicken math, please help me find a cure.
I have 4 bantams, each weight just a bit over 600g, so let just round down to 600g each.
600gx 4 =2.4kg
My smallest standard side hen in the flock weighed 2.6kg
4 bantam is 2.4kg, less than 2.6kg of a standard hen, thus they do not count.
So therefore I only have 9 hens, not 13 hens.
Here is my rooster. He is in chicken heaven now.
@SkyAJK
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There is no cure that we know of to date. 
he was a beauty! 
Thanks to a sneaky polish hen I have 15 more chicks than I planned on for the year. Lots of roosters here.
