Hi,
New to BYC and have had accidental chickens for 8 years now. I have a friend that has a 20 acre farm and a very happy flock of chickens that are so free range that she has to occasionally retrieve them from neighbors' farms. She wanted to add some new chicks to her flock about 8 years ago and thought it would be fun for my 8 year old son to raise them as a project. She didn't really give him any parameters on type of chicken, so when we went to the local farm supply store, the ones he fell in love with and brought home were three mixed bantams. These he lovingly raised by hand, named them Fuzzy Slippers, False Alarm and Lookout and sent them off to live in their new home when they were about 12 weeks old. My friend was very gracious, even though mini bantam eggs were not what she was interested in selling. However, she realized quickly what a great chick raiser my son was and every year he had 6-8 new chicks to raise, usually Araucanas (no more small eggs). In addition, we would do the occasional chick "rescue" when one of her hens would hatch out some babies and she was going to be out of town and couldn't look after them herself.
That is how we ended up with our first full-time chicken residents. One hen hatched out 5 babies, but the local skunk got three in one evening. My friend brought over the two left and we started raising them. One was fine, the other limped on one leg. They turned out to be brother and sister, with the hen being the injured one. My fiance started calling the roo Ren and the hen Stimpy. The names stuck. A friend that is a local equine vet wanted to test his new portable x-ray unit so we volunteered Stimpy, curious what was wrong with her leg. Turns out she seems to have an ACL injury. This doesn't slow her down at all, she hops on one leg, balances on the injured one, flies into her coop every night, roosts, lays eggs and scratches in the dirt just fine. Ren is a beautiful roo with an amazing patchwork of colors on him. He was incredibly tame when he lived with us, he just took exception to any footwear that was out of the ordinary, i.e. regular flat, enclosed shoes were fine but he would try to attack your feet if you wore farm boots or sandals! My friend's son was setting up his own farm and had a flock of hens, but wanted a tame rooster because his new wife was somewhat timid around chickens. My friend offered to give us back the last survivor of our original three bantams if we would let her son adopt Ren.
Thus we reunited with our little banty hen, Fuzzy Slippers. After a bit of research (on BYC and other poultry sites) I figured out she was a Belgium booted d'Uccle in the mille fleur coloration. The amazing thing is, she still remembered my son and still has a special language she uses just for him. Lots of soft chuckles and coos.
This is getting long, but I just wanted to add that before having our girls in the back yard, I had the typical attitude of someone that lives far from the land might have towards chickens, that they are filthy, stupid animals that really were only good for eggs and casseroles. I have since learned that chickens are smart, sweet, social, loyal, useful, beautiful, clean and very pleasant companions. I have cared for a friend's parrot on occasion when she was traveling and find chickens to be not very different in temperament or intelligence. Not that anyone I try to tell this to believes me.
I will close by adding a pic of Fuzzy Slippers (she is now 9 and going strong).
Cheers, gillyfleur
New to BYC and have had accidental chickens for 8 years now. I have a friend that has a 20 acre farm and a very happy flock of chickens that are so free range that she has to occasionally retrieve them from neighbors' farms. She wanted to add some new chicks to her flock about 8 years ago and thought it would be fun for my 8 year old son to raise them as a project. She didn't really give him any parameters on type of chicken, so when we went to the local farm supply store, the ones he fell in love with and brought home were three mixed bantams. These he lovingly raised by hand, named them Fuzzy Slippers, False Alarm and Lookout and sent them off to live in their new home when they were about 12 weeks old. My friend was very gracious, even though mini bantam eggs were not what she was interested in selling. However, she realized quickly what a great chick raiser my son was and every year he had 6-8 new chicks to raise, usually Araucanas (no more small eggs). In addition, we would do the occasional chick "rescue" when one of her hens would hatch out some babies and she was going to be out of town and couldn't look after them herself.
That is how we ended up with our first full-time chicken residents. One hen hatched out 5 babies, but the local skunk got three in one evening. My friend brought over the two left and we started raising them. One was fine, the other limped on one leg. They turned out to be brother and sister, with the hen being the injured one. My fiance started calling the roo Ren and the hen Stimpy. The names stuck. A friend that is a local equine vet wanted to test his new portable x-ray unit so we volunteered Stimpy, curious what was wrong with her leg. Turns out she seems to have an ACL injury. This doesn't slow her down at all, she hops on one leg, balances on the injured one, flies into her coop every night, roosts, lays eggs and scratches in the dirt just fine. Ren is a beautiful roo with an amazing patchwork of colors on him. He was incredibly tame when he lived with us, he just took exception to any footwear that was out of the ordinary, i.e. regular flat, enclosed shoes were fine but he would try to attack your feet if you wore farm boots or sandals! My friend's son was setting up his own farm and had a flock of hens, but wanted a tame rooster because his new wife was somewhat timid around chickens. My friend offered to give us back the last survivor of our original three bantams if we would let her son adopt Ren.
Thus we reunited with our little banty hen, Fuzzy Slippers. After a bit of research (on BYC and other poultry sites) I figured out she was a Belgium booted d'Uccle in the mille fleur coloration. The amazing thing is, she still remembered my son and still has a special language she uses just for him. Lots of soft chuckles and coos.
This is getting long, but I just wanted to add that before having our girls in the back yard, I had the typical attitude of someone that lives far from the land might have towards chickens, that they are filthy, stupid animals that really were only good for eggs and casseroles. I have since learned that chickens are smart, sweet, social, loyal, useful, beautiful, clean and very pleasant companions. I have cared for a friend's parrot on occasion when she was traveling and find chickens to be not very different in temperament or intelligence. Not that anyone I try to tell this to believes me.
I will close by adding a pic of Fuzzy Slippers (she is now 9 and going strong).
Cheers, gillyfleur
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