I have been checking out the Backyard chucken page for some time, and appreciate the kindness and helpfulness of the members. As a child, my mom told me chickens hated red heads... 
i was petrified of them, and didn't really want any until I was an adult. Fast forwad..kids grew up, and I remarried after a long time of being a single mom..One day my daughter brought home 2 baby calves. One of his daughters (who is now mine 
) refused to eat beef after that. My husband was afraid she would not eat chicken if she met one.
Fast forward to grandkids
Daughter 2 started to eat beef again.... she home schools, and wanted to do a life cycle project but since they live in town we needed dads OK for me to have chickens down the road, dad still said no...
Fast forward to quarentine .... like many communities, we ran out of TP and eggs the 1st week our state shut down.. On Wednesday, . husband looked at me wistfully, and said, "Hmmm maybe we should have chickens". Thursday morning daughter 2 and I were off to buy our chicks. I have friends with chickens, so also bought 12 eggs to incubate, because it was still a science lesson. This was all in March...2020
So, I bought 6 barred rock pullets
She.bought 6 from the assorted bin.
She started incubating the eggs.
1 of my pullets didnt make it a week.
The next weekend she bought 4 more assorted , because she didn't think the incubated eggs would hatch and brought them to me.
Easter, 5 of the 12 hatched, they were delivered the next day.
6-1+4+5=14 chicks, in my home office. (She still had her original 6). The home office is an important peice of my story, because I am a school superintendent/principal, and we were spending a lot of time on zoom, I would pop into various "classes" with a chick or two.... lol. Kids loved it, teachers tolerated it, but Inguess it was OK, because they never muted me.
My husband built a lovely coop out of an old garden shed. When the time was right, we moved the ladies outside, and I officially became the crazy chicken lady. (Sending multiple snapchats to your kids, of you sitting in the coop and chickens sitting on you, might do that).
Then the crowing started. It was a process to find a forever ish home for roosters...
Out of the 20 we had,
5 of her 6 were roosters
2 of the 4 she brought were roosters
3 of the 5 that hatched were roosters.
We sent all but 1 rooster to new homes.
So I had 9 hens and a rooster.
Word got out that I was the
lady. A friend in town was needing a place for her girls to go.... 5 producing Rhode Island reds. They are named after the 7 dwarfs and are super sweet).
10 + 5
Unfortunately one of my barred hens died last week, after a few days of being nursed in the house. (Dislodged impaction, causing suffocation). So I am not down to 14.
The Rhode Islands have been producing since I got them, but yesterday, I got.the 1st egg from someone else! I am thinking it is one of the barred, but not sure. It is tiny, and adorable... and the reason I came back to BYC.... to see if small eggs are normal.
Oh, and other than the red hens...my ladies are all named after Greys anatomy characters, because I was also hosting an exchange student from Ukraine at the time, and she started watching the show... I had never seen it...
Other than being a school leader,
lady, and mema to 3, we have 4 kids together, 2 son in laws, 2 horses, 2 cats, 1 fish, and 3 dogs. In the summer we are normally found in the pool or the lake.
I appreciate how kind everyone is on this site, and am happy to continue to learn from you!
Here's a quick link to where to post your new thread with your intro info: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/new-member-introductions.44/create-thread
Last edited: Jan 5, 2019
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i was petrified of them, and didn't really want any until I was an adult. Fast forwad..kids grew up, and I remarried after a long time of being a single mom..One day my daughter brought home 2 baby calves. One of his daughters (who is now mine ) refused to eat beef after that. My husband was afraid she would not eat chicken if she met one. Fast forward to grandkids
Daughter 2 started to eat beef again.... she home schools, and wanted to do a life cycle project but since they live in town we needed dads OK for me to have chickens down the road, dad still said no...
Fast forward to quarentine .... like many communities, we ran out of TP and eggs the 1st week our state shut down.. On Wednesday, . husband looked at me wistfully, and said, "Hmmm maybe we should have chickens". Thursday morning daughter 2 and I were off to buy our chicks. I have friends with chickens, so also bought 12 eggs to incubate, because it was still a science lesson. This was all in March...2020
So, I bought 6 barred rock pullets
She.bought 6 from the assorted bin.
She started incubating the eggs.
1 of my pullets didnt make it a week.
The next weekend she bought 4 more assorted , because she didn't think the incubated eggs would hatch and brought them to me.
Easter, 5 of the 12 hatched, they were delivered the next day.
6-1+4+5=14 chicks, in my home office. (She still had her original 6). The home office is an important peice of my story, because I am a school superintendent/principal, and we were spending a lot of time on zoom, I would pop into various "classes" with a chick or two.... lol. Kids loved it, teachers tolerated it, but Inguess it was OK, because they never muted me.
My husband built a lovely coop out of an old garden shed. When the time was right, we moved the ladies outside, and I officially became the crazy chicken lady. (Sending multiple snapchats to your kids, of you sitting in the coop and chickens sitting on you, might do that).
Then the crowing started. It was a process to find a forever ish home for roosters...
Out of the 20 we had,
5 of her 6 were roosters
2 of the 4 she brought were roosters
3 of the 5 that hatched were roosters.
We sent all but 1 rooster to new homes.
So I had 9 hens and a rooster.
Word got out that I was the
lady. A friend in town was needing a place for her girls to go.... 5 producing Rhode Island reds. They are named after the 7 dwarfs and are super sweet). 10 + 5
Unfortunately one of my barred hens died last week, after a few days of being nursed in the house. (Dislodged impaction, causing suffocation). So I am not down to 14.
The Rhode Islands have been producing since I got them, but yesterday, I got.the 1st egg from someone else! I am thinking it is one of the barred, but not sure. It is tiny, and adorable...
and the reason I came back to BYC.... to see if small eggs are normal. Oh, and other than the red hens...my ladies are all named after Greys anatomy characters, because I was also hosting an exchange student from Ukraine at the time, and she started watching the show... I had never seen it...
Other than being a school leader,
lady, and mema to 3, we have 4 kids together, 2 son in laws, 2 horses, 2 cats, 1 fish, and 3 dogs. In the summer we are normally found in the pool or the lake. I appreciate how kind everyone is on this site, and am happy to continue to learn from you!
Here's a quick link to where to post your new thread with your intro info: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/new-member-introductions.44/create-thread
Last edited: Jan 5, 2019
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Reactions:mandyxo, Shannon11, RebelMoose and 229 other
Glad you joined.
