Poultry Pictures from our Ancestors

[Omran]

These pictures are priceless, thank you all for sharing them with us.

 

[stuckinthecity]

Wow, I cannot tell you how much I love seeing old pics. My grandmother has tons of the farm, but only one or two that have chickens in them.
And Ive noticed something. In every picture that I've seen of old chicken photos on the farm, there are ALWAYS mama hens and baby chicks. I've always said I wish I could go back in time and keep my grandmothers flock. She used to tell me stories of her mothers chickens, and how they kept them. I always loved to listen to their coop design, what they fed them, nest boxes, and how the mama hen raised her chicks. Mine had an old chicken house and a run to put them in, in the spring, when they were planting their garden. They used old vegetable baskets for nest "boxes" and out of the 8-15 hens they would have, over half of them would go broody and would have to raise their chicks in the pen with all the other chickens. It is so interesting to me to see how the old timers raised their livestock, specially chickens.

 

[havi]

I have an old book called "Production in the South" thats from 1943. It has a bunch of old photos and great stuff in there. I'll try to see if I can scan some of them later and post. It talks about building a "sack and cement" coop for $5 to $10.

And its a huge coop at that. I would say at least 12x12. Thats just crazy! Today the nails alone would cost ya $10. lol

 

[sweet tweets]

This - if I read the directions correctly - and I suppose followed them correctly too - is a picture of my mom and her sibs standing at the front end of a cow facing away, but all over in the field and in fact, directly under the head of the cow, are chickens.

The youngest one had a bad foot, club foot in fact and grandma thought the fresh food would be best for him.

If any of you are from San Diego, East County, the photographer would have had Mt. Helix behind them just a short distance away.

 

[stuckinthecity]

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Please do!! I would love to see some of those photos!

 

[havi]

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Here the link. I uploaded them all to flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9218308@N05/


This one is my favorite. The one on the right side. Its just so old fashioned and simple. She looks so happy. With her pail, her apron and big floppy hat.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9218308@N05/3722000299/in/photostream/?rotated=1&cb=1247630762093

 

[Sam The Yam]

Thank you all for posting so far. Some great comments and pictures so far. Please keep the coming. We need to keep the memories of our ancestors alive and this is certainly one way we can do it.

Also, a co-worker has a 10 yr old son who is out of school for the summer and she is a single parent. She sent him to California to be with her parents for the summer. They have given him the opportunity to hatch some eggs and he now has 5 chicks that he is taking care of in the bedroom where he is sleeping. He is planning on bringing them home in early August and she has a dog run that can be converted into a coop. But what is so cool is that his grandparents have given him the opportunity to do this. It is given him responsibility for something and she says that he is so excited. He has her put the phone up to his little sisters ear who did not go so that she can hear the chicks peeping. It most likely is keeping him away from the TV and computer games. Our kids certainly need these opportunities!

 

[stuckinthecity]

Thank you so much!
Also I found this link of some old photos of a leghorn hen with ducklings!

http://images.google.com/hosted/lif...n&sa=N&start=36&um=1&imgurl=4bf7c8cb37c0515f#

 

[Sitka]

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That's a great story. I had a similar experience when I was 10---staying at my Aunt and Uncle's farm in Arkansas (in fact it's where my screen name comes from, the tiny community of Sitka, Arkansas). I came home with a hen and her chicks and was koo-koo for chickens ever after.

This site has some videos about the chicken industry from the 1930's and 1940's: http://countrycoopchickens.com/farmingvideos.htm

 

[Sam The Yam]

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That is a great picture. My father told me once of a mother hen who sat on some eggs and apparently there was a duckling that was hatched as well. So, as ducklings should, it proceeded to go into the irrigation ditch for a swim. Well, the mother hen, thinking that she had all baby chicks, was frantic to think that one of her babies was in the water. She ran up and down the ditch trying to save her baby, while all the while the baby must have been having a great time.