Do you ever encounter people that don't know where eggs come from?

[wombat]

My mother grew up on a farm, and hated chickens with a passion. When I told her we were getting some, the questions were "whatever would you do THAT for???" and "Where will you keep them?"

We told her we wanted them for eggs, and they were gonna live in the house because the kids and chickens could watch TV together ... she's gotten over the whole thing, something about seeing smiling grandchildren painting the coop, carrying chickens, carrying baskets of eggs ...

From what I can tell from some of the old family pics, they had some sort of production leghorns, and I've heard those can be rather psycho. The meaties look like straight Cornish. Hers were definately not made pets of. My mom will not eat chicken and corn at the same meal from all the corn she had to clean from crops when birds were slaughtered. To each their own, I suppose.

 

[3KillerBs]

Quote:
You get the idea that some of these people have never seen a chicken house! Oh, and that was very rude of him. Were did he get the idea that you keep chickens in barrels anyway?

When I lived up in the mountains on the NC/TN border we often saw places with anywhere from half a dozen to twenty or more roosters staked out in little yards, each with his own little shelter -- a blue barrel on its side, half-filled with straw.

The hens, presumably, were in the henhouses. Though I would assume that the barrel and yard would make a splendid, private place for a broody and her chicks in the spring.

The roosters always looked active and healthy and, from the road at least, the yards looked clean, if a bit ramshackle since much of the construction was done with recycled/reclaimed/re-purposed materials.

 

[woolymama]

This summer my basil was overrun by Japanese beetles and I would let my chicks out to eat them - one hen I could carry around and she'd pick them right off the plant.
When I have shown this to some people they were concerned that we would eat eggs from chickens that had consumed bugs. Some felt that it was "not natural" (um, hello...what do birds naturally eat???) and others felt it would make the eggs "contaminated" by the bugs.
Weird. But hey, at least my garden wasn't destroyed by Japanese beetles!!!

 

[chick4chix]

I get at least one question a week like: "how can you get eggs if you don't have a rooster"?

 

[Beekissed]

Were did he get the idea that you keep chickens in barrels anyway?

This is the way folks in the country keep fighting roos.....

Topic is forboden on here, but just a FYI about the barrels.​

 

[valkerri]

Quote:
Me too. Until I read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." One of the last chapters gives a pretty explicit, yet tasteful, description of Turkey Sex. I assume chickens are similar. It sounds funny but Kingsolver handles the topic with grace. I found it enlightening. That is a great book. If you're not interested in reading the whole book, I guess you could go to the library and just read the underlined parts --grin.

 

[Rillion]

Regarding "Chicken Sex 101": here's a video on Youtube in which a woman shows how to artificially inseminate a chicken. That might help clear things up a bit.

 

[michickenwrangler]

My husband just realized that we have fertilized eggs and he asked, "How can you tell?"

So when I scrambled up some eggs, I showed him the white bull's-eye. Now he won't eat them despite the fact that he has eaten other people's fertilized eggs for the past 8 years without realizing it.

So now I have more eggs than I know what to do with.

 

[NYREDS]

Quote:
You get the idea that some of these people have never seen a chicken house! Oh, and that was very rude of him. Were did he get the idea that you keep chickens in barrels anyway?

When I lived up in the mountains on the NC/TN border we often saw places with anywhere from half a dozen to twenty or more roosters staked out in little yards, each with his own little shelter -- a blue barrel on its side, half-filled with straw.

The hens, presumably, were in the henhouses. Though I would assume that the barrel and yard would make a splendid, private place for a broody and her chicks in the spring.

The roosters always looked active and healthy and, from the road at least, the yards looked clean, if a bit ramshackle since much of the construction was done with recycled/reclaimed/re-purposed materials.

What you were seeing were fighting cocks. They are kept that way because if allowed to run together they'll kill each other.

 

[woolymama]

Quote:
When I lived up in the mountains on the NC/TN border we often saw places with anywhere from half a dozen to twenty or more roosters staked out in little yards, each with his own little shelter -- a blue barrel on its side, half-filled with straw.

The hens, presumably, were in the henhouses. Though I would assume that the barrel and yard would make a splendid, private place for a broody and her chicks in the spring.

The roosters always looked active and healthy and, from the road at least, the yards looked clean, if a bit ramshackle since much of the construction was done with recycled/reclaimed/re-purposed materials.

What you were seeing were fighting cocks. They are kept that way because if allowed to run together they'll kill each other.

I have to ask, because I've seen it around here - how do people keep their roosters on leashes? I've seen them - I guess they don't want them fighting each other....but leashes???? How do hey not strangle themselves?