Hello! Glad to have found this forum, it will be so helpful. I am a housewife and mother of 2 lovely girls. I grew up a farm girl but now live in town. Fortunately we got a culdesac house w/ 3/4acre lot and plenty of room for a few critters!
Our family consist of my 8 and 10yr old girls, our nonsense, turtle, and our 5 bantam hens and 1 roo. (had a couple bunnies that recently passed away) My girls wanted a chic for easter a couple years ago and that's how it started! The local farm store will only sell a min. of 6 chics so we became urban farmers! My 10yr old autistic daughter took to them like nothing I'd ever seen. She talks and plays with them and they coo and talk right back to her and she sits in their coop with them and they crawl in her lap and perch on her shoulders and it's kinda crazy! I never thought I'd be in love w/ chicken but they have grown on us so and hope to add to our little flock. We've added a couple here and there as we've lost a couple to preditors and had to get rid of a couple roo's that we were told were hens. (neighbors frown upon to much crowing!) Plus one roo we had that was the most beautiful one I'd ever seen was also the most horribly mean one ever! He pecked my daughter in the eye and would chase them around the yard. He drew blood on my feet several times and our dog was scared of him, so he had to go! They all have names given by my kids and oddly most of them are named after food their coloring reminded them of! lol! We have mixed breeds. All are bantams except for Baby Blue. She is a beautiful blue Cochin and the farmer we got her from told us she was bantam and wasn't. She is sweet though and not to bright and I don't think she even knows that she's different. It funny though because she is so much bigger than the others and so clumsy and the biggest baby! They have tought us many things and we love watching them. Our roo we have now is strangely sweet and a BIG BABY! He crys about everything. If the food is low, water is low, something spooked them, if he hasn't gotten any attention, etc... I keep asking neighbors if he bothers them but until he does we will keep him because he's so sweet and we would like to try to hatch some eggs this spring. (our little Peanut Butter keeps going broody and I feel aweful steeling her eggs and listening to her cry!) So anyway.... I'm rambling but that's us and we are glad to be here and meet some fellow chicken lovers and many of you with good advice when needed!
