- Sep 16, 2013
- 157
- 28
- 78
Hi there! My name is Carrie and I live in the Florida Panhandle. I grew up with chickens when I was a child but would never fall in love with them until two years ago when a friend gave me six bantys as a present to help clean up my yard after I got stung on the head by a bumble bee! Chickens became my therapy - I have severe allergies and PTSD. I used to be horribly terrified to go out in the yard because of allergic reactions to bugs but with them I got over it!
In the two years I've had chickens I've learned so much. From teaching myself how to use a table saw to build houses & pens for them (mostly from scrap wood) to just how much inner strength I have at defending my flock from predators. I lost 11 members of my flock last June from a dog attack - two dogs broke into my pen one morning while my chickens were minding their own business. Was the worst day ever, I never thought I'd heal from it but I have, and now I'm stronger and neighbors have learned to supervise their own animals a little better too!
So I finally came here to try to network with some real people, decent people who understand just how special chickens are! I've gone the Craigslist route and have met a small handful of individuals from buying, selling & trading chickens BUT Craigslist has become so disappointingly overrun with spamming & scamming it's frightening! Recently I've tried advertising some chickens I have for sale there in the "farm & garden" section and what do I get in return? Nothing but invites to porn sites!
Anyway, nice to meet everyone here! Here's a few pictures of my "kids"...
This is BeeBee - he's our little rooster that has house priviledges. Check out those toes!
He lost a couple of them one night last spring when a coyote showed up my house. Lots
of blood everywhere - it was terrifying! But he pulled through just fine and learned to walk
normally in a few weeks...
This is Mimi, she's a newbie to the coop and still very young! I got her after the destruction that occurred in June.
I was taken by her color and immediately bought her... little did I know then how sweet she would turn out to be!
She's been very instrumental in helping me heal the wounds from June!
She's always at my feet, loves to have her head scratched and tries her hardest to slip out the pen door and into
the yard when I'm there! She always wants to know what I'm doing whenever I'm there...
And this is my buddy Clifford who actually belonged to the neighbors. Clifford hung out with two other chickens
and would roam the woods with them foraging for tasty treats, occasionally they would stop in and visit my chickens.
One day they all disappeared, and after about a week he appeared in my yard looking very lost & lonely. His two
friends had very obviously gotten snatched up by the Goshawk that was in the neighborhood at the time. No one
catch him to put him in a pen where he would be safe. That was until I showed up! Anyway, I got Clifford calmed
down and in a period of two weeks this "wild" rooster was crawling into my lap! And long story short - Clifford made
his way to a new home to serve as a "therapy chicken" for a family with autistic children and they love him!
So that's just to name a few...
Again nice to meet everyone! ~ Carrie
So I finally came here to try to network with some real people, decent people who understand just how special chickens are! I've gone the Craigslist route and have met a small handful of individuals from buying, selling & trading chickens BUT Craigslist has become so disappointingly overrun with spamming & scamming it's frightening! Recently I've tried advertising some chickens I have for sale there in the "farm & garden" section and what do I get in return? Nothing but invites to porn sites!
Anyway, nice to meet everyone here! Here's a few pictures of my "kids"...
This is BeeBee - he's our little rooster that has house priviledges. Check out those toes!
He lost a couple of them one night last spring when a coyote showed up my house. Lots
of blood everywhere - it was terrifying! But he pulled through just fine and learned to walk
normally in a few weeks...
This is Mimi, she's a newbie to the coop and still very young! I got her after the destruction that occurred in June.
I was taken by her color and immediately bought her... little did I know then how sweet she would turn out to be!
She's been very instrumental in helping me heal the wounds from June!
She's always at my feet, loves to have her head scratched and tries her hardest to slip out the pen door and into
the yard when I'm there! She always wants to know what I'm doing whenever I'm there...
And this is my buddy Clifford who actually belonged to the neighbors. Clifford hung out with two other chickens
and would roam the woods with them foraging for tasty treats, occasionally they would stop in and visit my chickens.
One day they all disappeared, and after about a week he appeared in my yard looking very lost & lonely. His two
friends had very obviously gotten snatched up by the Goshawk that was in the neighborhood at the time. No one
catch him to put him in a pen where he would be safe. That was until I showed up! Anyway, I got Clifford calmed
down and in a period of two weeks this "wild" rooster was crawling into my lap! And long story short - Clifford made
his way to a new home to serve as a "therapy chicken" for a family with autistic children and they love him!
So that's just to name a few...
Again nice to meet everyone! ~ Carrie
