"You know you're addicted to chickens when..."
All the pictures and videos you upload from your cell phone camera are of chickens and none of your new born nephew!
You know you're addicted to raising backyard chickens when...
...You take a chicken in to church... and no-one comments about how odd that is... And the next week, someone else has their chicken with them.
...You become known as "The Chicken Girl" by the younger children in your homeschooling group.
...Parents in your homeschooling group come to you asking for chicken advice or wanting their chicken sexed.
...You go for an hour-long session with your psychiatrist... only to spend 45 minutes talking about each other's chickens.
...Your psychiatrist tells you, "I'm glad you're my client... I can ask you for advice about my chickens."
...You're a bunkhouse counsellor at a youth camp and one of your girls is feeling homesick... not for her parents or siblings but for her pet chicken who usually sleeps in her bed. The other children tease her about it and the staff think she's crazy... but she's happy to tell you about missing Chooky-Lou because she knows you'll understand.
...The first thing you say when a new teacher rings you up to introduce herself at the beginning of the year is, "Sorry it took so long to get to the phone... I was trying to catch some white Leghorns."
...The same teacher tells you the next week that if you can't remember the teleconferencing code to get into her lesson, you should write it on a piece of paper and stick it to a chicken.
...Your cat starts sulking because he wanted to watch TV from your lap but a chicken was already there.
When you have one that got injured living in your house....five months after the injury has healed...and you have to put her to bed every night before you can go to bed.
You get up at 5:30am and spend the next hour in the backyard to keep the hens quiet, because otherwise the neighbors in your suburb could call the city to complain.
You have already started planning for the future when you will be replacing/adding to the chickens you have right now...
You are thinking how nice it would be to have "just one more"...
You call your chickens by name and they respond...
When you put them to bed at night in their coop and all they want is one last snuggle...
They look for you in the morning and are excited to see you...
You start conversations with friends with the phrase, "Can I tell you a cute story about my chickens?"
Here's the big one: You are able to talk with your neighbors about the benefits of owning backyard chickens, and they start thinking about getting chickens, too!
Created a Van Gogh coop for our retired chickens!!! Pulled an old building out of our back 40, added a new floor, covered it with old barn wood and painted every side with a different Van Gogh painting. This was my 1st attempt at painting murals.. It was a blast!! For more pics of my coop, see my profile.