Hello all! I thought it might be time for a formal introduction. My name is Jeanne and I live outside of Chesterton/Valpo area.
My husband is Jason and we have 1 daughter(age 7) and God willing, another in the oven soon. We have about a little over an acre and last year discovered the wonderful world of chickens. We started with 6, then 6 more, then 5 more for a total of 17. We did very well with them, but wound up with an oopsy Rooster we tried to keep and named him Fred. He was a Partidge Rock and I loved him, but he began trying to attack my daughter..after an internal struggle with ethics, we decided to cull him. We fed him to our great dane Milly(who is pretty much my life, after my daughter). She eats raw chicken everyday, just not OUR chickens. She is actually really good with our girls. We also have 4 cats, a great dane and a rescue bunny named Pongo in our family.
We have not had any predation issues, but did lose one of Barred Rock Girls(Grace was her name)...she got her head stuck in a fence and when we found her it was too late. My daughter was crushed and wanted to burry her, so we had to have a little chicken funeral and made her a nice memorial garden. My daughter is just like me with animals..loves them all and would not dream of hurting one...she is a true rescuer at heart..She is constantly telling family our chickens are NOT meat birds!
We have 20 chicks in the brooder now, mostly production type birds. I am now looking to add Silkies & Cochins that will be more like pets for us and have there own special coop . Our girls now are like pets and have the best of everything, but we are hoping to do 4-h and poultry shows with our daughter.
I am looking forward to getting to know everyone here and learn more about this poultry addiction we all have
Congrats on the new baby, what a beautiful name!
Awe great story thanks for sharing and welcome to IN BYC! I have both silkies and bantam cochins, if you have an incubator I have fertile eggs from my Frizzle to smooth Cochin, otherwise I have to wait in hopes she goes broody, I'm dying to hatch some of their babies, just wonderful breed!
