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JLS84780 said:
Hi there. My first hen and rooster came to live in the abandoned playhouse when I was about eight. Our dog killed the rooster and the neighbor's dog killed their hen, so for nearly a year we shared the remaining pair back and forth across the street. My neighbor was the only one brave enough to catch that mean rooster. We probably enjoyed a few eggs, but soon the couple found their way to a nearby farm since no one wanted to care for them or do the back and forth thing again.

Fast forward nearly 40 years to a large property in the country and two girlfriends who are absolutely nuts about chickens. They supplied me with my first 5 hens, mostly Welsummer crosses and Americana. And then when a few of those passed over ten years, they gave me a couple of Wyandottes. Having five hens in an old horse stall with plenty of green grass in NorCal was super simple. The dog at that time only got one of the girls that had found a hole in the chicken wire tunnel I gave them for better foraging.

Fast forward another 10 years from then and now I live on a small lot in Southern Utah. Everything is harder here! I've learned about needing to keep water out during the summer so they can wade to stay cool. Hubby built a beautiful small coop on stilts to keep the varmits away, and the girls have a long ramp down to the enclosed run that has absolutely nothing growing in it. The soil is terrible and the only worms I've ever seen here arrive in pots from the nurseries.

In the first year of chicken keeping, of the 3 pullets a neighbor gave to us, I'm pretty sure one died from egg binding. The symptoms sound about right tho I never felt an egg. I thought she/Black Maran was broody for a second day and she was dead when I got home that afternoon. She'd only started laying eggs consistently after I increased the protein in their feed. She'd been having trouble her whole first year and we found several rubber eggs as well. Of the other two older gals that were free from a rescue, we returned the most beautiful Golden Laced Wyandotte because she was a horrible bully. I tried detention for her twice but she refused to reform. She picked the hardest on the hen that came with her, a sweet, tame Red Comet, who enjoyed a special six months without bullying before she succumbed to water belly. Hence, we currently have just two: a Silver Laced Wyandotte and a Leghorn. The petite Leghorn with a ginormous floppy comb has been laying huge eggs for the last three months and has abruptly stopped. The Wyandotte just started. We hope to add a few more pullets later this month, but don't look forward to the introductions...

When not hen-keeping we answer to two Saluki dogs, and I also play violin with our church band. I dabble in watercolor where my thoughts of how easy something looks to paint never quite reach the skill level of my hands, but it's a great hobby when it's too hot to garden in the summer.
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I forgot to tell my favorite egg story, courtesy of my dad who was in the Navy during WWII. He went ashore from the USS Niblack in Malta, but the maps he was retrieving to helm the ship were not ready yet as it was the lunch hour. A young Italian soldier offered to take him home for lunch. They walked into town and up to a second story flat where he met the young man's mother. She asked how the food was because it was said the US soldiers had the best rations. Dad had to disagree (he was a foodie, before being a "foodie" was thing), after years of tomato sauce and powdered eggs. She asked if he would like an egg for lunch, which he thought was terrific. She reached outside of her upstairs window and let down a rope holding a wicker cage with a chicken in it. She reached in for their one egg that day and prepared it for my dad. He said it was the best egg he'd ever had and to his dying day, at 95 years old, he loved fresh poached eggs, and he taught me to love them too.
 

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