- Jul 1, 2007
- 4
- 0
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Hi, my name is "ChickenLittleMom" and I am so glad to have discovered this website! I discovered it by googling 'chicken coops' because we have to build one and I was looking for ideas. We are keeping the chickens in a temporary cage at night and letting them run (within limits,) during the day.
My three children (ages 18, 16 and 13), and I recently bought our 3rd set of chickens in about 19 years after a few years of being without them. Boy, I sure did miss those eggs but we were all too busy and our attention was in other places to do chickens at the time.
It is absolutely amazing to see how intelligent these birds are, how easily trained, how attached they become to their humans. Even my dog, a labrador retriever, is gentle with them. She lets them climb all over her (they are only a week old) and only occasionally wants to chase them. Her herding instincts have kicked in and she knows to guide them back to their place when they begin to stray. They come to me when I call them and go right into the cage. Sometimes, though, they are fresh and run in to the bushes when I try to capture them. My dog lies down with them like a mommy dog and they climb under her arm and tail.
One thing I hope to accomplish is setting an example of how people can 'go green' in their own neighborhoods and take this up a notch eventually.
Keeping chickens tend to go hand in hand with gardening and usually if you find chickens you find a gardener as well. As people who see this become more familiar with it and get support and encouragement, they, too, might decide to raise chickens themselves. As our critical mass grows we become less 'weird' and people will be even more inclined to try keeping chickens. It bothers me to see so many suburban people spending hours keeping their lawns green and then go spend lots of money on fruits, vegetables, and eggs every week. It just doesn't make sense to do this when they could just be keeping chickens, growing vegetables, herbs, composing, and creating the best fertilizer in the world for the garden, using the chickens to keep the garden free of bug pests and avoiding the harmful chemicals that cost money to produce and then damage the environment.
Don't want to go on and on but that's basically where I am at right now. Plus, chickens are sooo relaxing! When they are little chickies, they are so cute. Everybody just sits around chatting and watching them grow. It's the ultimate conversation piece. We know that eventually gets old but then they lay eggs and we can settle for that.
ChickenLittleMom
My three children (ages 18, 16 and 13), and I recently bought our 3rd set of chickens in about 19 years after a few years of being without them. Boy, I sure did miss those eggs but we were all too busy and our attention was in other places to do chickens at the time.
It is absolutely amazing to see how intelligent these birds are, how easily trained, how attached they become to their humans. Even my dog, a labrador retriever, is gentle with them. She lets them climb all over her (they are only a week old) and only occasionally wants to chase them. Her herding instincts have kicked in and she knows to guide them back to their place when they begin to stray. They come to me when I call them and go right into the cage. Sometimes, though, they are fresh and run in to the bushes when I try to capture them. My dog lies down with them like a mommy dog and they climb under her arm and tail.
One thing I hope to accomplish is setting an example of how people can 'go green' in their own neighborhoods and take this up a notch eventually.
Keeping chickens tend to go hand in hand with gardening and usually if you find chickens you find a gardener as well. As people who see this become more familiar with it and get support and encouragement, they, too, might decide to raise chickens themselves. As our critical mass grows we become less 'weird' and people will be even more inclined to try keeping chickens. It bothers me to see so many suburban people spending hours keeping their lawns green and then go spend lots of money on fruits, vegetables, and eggs every week. It just doesn't make sense to do this when they could just be keeping chickens, growing vegetables, herbs, composing, and creating the best fertilizer in the world for the garden, using the chickens to keep the garden free of bug pests and avoiding the harmful chemicals that cost money to produce and then damage the environment.
Don't want to go on and on but that's basically where I am at right now. Plus, chickens are sooo relaxing! When they are little chickies, they are so cute. Everybody just sits around chatting and watching them grow. It's the ultimate conversation piece. We know that eventually gets old but then they lay eggs and we can settle for that.
ChickenLittleMom
