Hello! Once a lurker now a poster!

Well hello from Canada! ... As you can see from my name I'm a city girl ( the only shoes I owned were flip flops and high heels) ... Or was until about 4 months ago!

My soon to be husband (18 days! ) got transfered to another province and we decided to rent an acerage. (housing market is crazy so didn't want to sell our old house or we would lose money if we bought here its so high we would lose even more money!)

Well we have 44 acres to play with... And we both agreed a few chickens would we the way to go.... I was a bit unsure... We got 2 Silkies, and 3 Cochins.. How fun! The kids love them!!! Then I learned after the fact I got bantams... Oopsy....

So my other half went and picked us up 6 egg laying hens, 3 white leghorns, 2 Red ISA and this unknown zebra looking chicken. We have been getting eggs everyday an the kids love going and collecting eggs after lunch ( at 4 and 2 they already know the taste difference from store bought eggs, they won't eat store bought now! )

When we got the ISA one of the girls was very shy... She never left the roosting bar. Not for food or water nothing. I went in there and took her under my wing per say... I named we little red hen. She started eating out of my hand... Then would jump into my arms when I came in I would take her to the water and she would drink... After a few days she was part I the crowd and wasn't so shy. She was really quite the personality.

We had to leave for a few days this weekend and when we got home I ran over to check on them. Something wasn't right with my little red hen. She wasn't moving and looked like one wing was really high up... I picked her up and the look in her eyes I knew something was wrong she just leaned as hard as she could in my arms shaking.

We found out that our neighbours opened the pen to feed them and it appears he didn't close the door and his dog snatched my chicken. Sigh... He got the chicken back put her in the pen and left her.

We made the hard choice it put her out of pain. We planned on eating the chickens at some point but I didn't want it to be her

In the dark and cold my hunny brought his laptop outside with step by step instructions on how to kill, pluck and gut her. I cried in the house... The first kill was hard on all of us...

I knew I wouldn't be able to eat her.... She was.. Well my pet...

When her feathers were off we got the confirmation it was the right thing to do. The puncture wounds went right threw. She was indeed suffering, and likely would have died over night.

When he showed me her woun I threw up.

Maybe I'm not as tough as I thought I was, I knew this was the plan from the beginning... But I guess I just wasn't ready...

The kids asked to have her eggs for dinner last night. To thank her or all she did for us.

Wow.. That got long.. If your still with me...

We also got turkeys! Blue slate and chocolate... He picked them up last week.. They sure have personalities and are master escape artists. I think we finally have it so they can't run away! Lol trick sassy turkeys!

Anyways thank you for letting me join I have even reading the boards for month and figured after lastnight I should start talking and asking questions!

City Girl No More