After looking through some old-er) photos, I realized Its been EIGHT years (2017) since our earliest flock began the free range life. I am creating this mostly just for personal reasons and to save some eventful memories old and new, and remember some of our flock members.
We'll see how far I go with this. But I though I could Upload In order old to new chicken photos in a dialog type way.
I may update if I find more photos.
early spring 2017: Our first flock
1# Barred rock rooster
he was only a pullet at the time we got him and didn't live long enough for us to think about giving him a name.
8# Isa brown hens, The Isa browns formerly known as The poop coopers, spent most of their time in the coop/run filling it with poop, hence the name. As a result these hens were less of pets. We later realized that they were sick, and that's why they were in the coop so often. (Its the new chicken keepers fault)
1# Easter egger (Runnana Hen) she was a dominating very caring hen(I will explain her caring later†) She was also very flighty and free spirited. She would often choose to fly over the fence, instead of going with the rest of the flock around to the gate.
1# Jubilee Orpington ( Cheska Chicken). One notable thing about Cheska is she had a deformity with her leg. Her leg looked as if it had popped out of her joint and protruded up as a lump in her back. Despite this though she got around just fine with only a small limp. When she was broody she had a weird sort of funny sounding cluck. We sometimes would wonder if the deformity somehow pushed her tung to be further out in her mouth obstructing her voice causing her cluck to sound so funny. It was a far shot of a guess though. During the time when she was raising her 5 chicks, her cluck sounded as if she was begging to differ. "Teska tiken tad tix tix, Teska tiken tad tix tix" she would say over again. Which we interpreted as "Cheska chicken had six chicks". Maybe she though she lost a chick or something, I don't know.
These were our first chickens. We were new to chicken keeping at the time and made the mistake of buying from a privet guy without knowing or looking for the clues of how biohazards the place that we bought them from was.
We found these chickens for sale on craigslist, "Isa browns for sale, as many as you want. 10$ a bird" ( I know some of you more experienced chicken keepers out there are probably shaking your heads right now thinking about how many diseases you can pick up from doing this. I have to give us some slack though, we were completely new to chickens and didn't know anything about quarantining)
Well anyway when we arrived at this guys place, it was a dump. we should have turned around and left at that moment. There was trash everywhere; from rusting farm equipment all over the place to trash bags feed bags and five gallon buckets strewn across the junk yard. Oh and the chickens, there was probably hundred plus Isa browns running around all over mixed in with various chicken breeds. After pulling in we made our way up to the front door, the porch was completely dilapidated and didn't look safe enough to even stand on. Walking around the house for further investigation, we noticed someone, (assuming was the owner) who exited one of the multiple campers parked around the lot. He motioned us to drive up the hill to one of his campers, explaining how the house is where he keeps his Dogs, and he lives up in the campers. I assume that was because the house was unlivable. He was very unkept guy, his face completely unshaven. He had a loosely fitted shirt stanned and ripped, combined with his equally worn jeans, not to mention missing teeth. Despite his rough demeaner though he was quite friendly. It was like nothing ever bothered this guy, an uncaring friendliness of the sorts.
We had previously texted him, so he already knew to take us straight to one of the many barns on this property; whose condition was that or worse of the house. Some barns were buried waste deep in brambles and miscellaneous objects. Inside the barns was where he kept the chickens. He apologized about letting the chickens out this morning, saying how we are going to have to catch them now. Handing us a jumble of ripped up nets, he pointed out the chickens he was willing to part with. After spending the past hour and a half running around this maze of a junk filled property trying catch chickens, we finally had ourselves 10 Isa browns.
After that, the owner proceeded to show us some of his personal layer flock and other prized birds that he kept for his own enjoyment. There was many different colors and breeds whom I didn't know the name of. When asked where he got all these beautiful birds from he told us that he frequents chicken auctions regularly, and that's why he is able to sell so many birds at a "cheep" price.
These were such beautiful birds, we couldn't resist asking if he would be willing to part with any. After he reluctantly gave us permission to pick three; we choose the prettiest most outstanding birds that we saw. This was where we choose our Easter egger, our jubilee orpington, and barred rock rooster. Some could argue that there were prettier choices or that there is more to picking chickens then just color, but to our untrained eyes these were the most beautiful chickens in the world.
We only had room for 10 chickens at the time, so as much as it hurt to undo some of that hard earned catching finagling around with those nets all afternoon, we ended up having to release three of our ten Isa browns.
We left that place of a dump, with our 8 Isa browns, an Easter egger, a Jubilee Orpington and our Barred rock rooster, all packed up in cardboard boxes in the back of our mini van.
This was how we first got into chicken keeping, little did we know we would have our whole flock nearly wiped by an incurable disease.
We'll see if I get the motivation to write a part two.( sorry for the bad grammar XP)
We'll see how far I go with this. But I though I could Upload In order old to new chicken photos in a dialog type way.
I may update if I find more photos.
early spring 2017: Our first flock
1# Barred rock rooster
he was only a pullet at the time we got him and didn't live long enough for us to think about giving him a name.
8# Isa brown hens, The Isa browns formerly known as The poop coopers, spent most of their time in the coop/run filling it with poop, hence the name. As a result these hens were less of pets. We later realized that they were sick, and that's why they were in the coop so often. (Its the new chicken keepers fault)
These were our first chickens. We were new to chicken keeping at the time and made the mistake of buying from a privet guy without knowing or looking for the clues of how biohazards the place that we bought them from was.
We found these chickens for sale on craigslist, "Isa browns for sale, as many as you want. 10$ a bird" ( I know some of you more experienced chicken keepers out there are probably shaking your heads right now thinking about how many diseases you can pick up from doing this. I have to give us some slack though, we were completely new to chickens and didn't know anything about quarantining)
Well anyway when we arrived at this guys place, it was a dump. we should have turned around and left at that moment. There was trash everywhere; from rusting farm equipment all over the place to trash bags feed bags and five gallon buckets strewn across the junk yard. Oh and the chickens, there was probably hundred plus Isa browns running around all over mixed in with various chicken breeds. After pulling in we made our way up to the front door, the porch was completely dilapidated and didn't look safe enough to even stand on. Walking around the house for further investigation, we noticed someone, (assuming was the owner) who exited one of the multiple campers parked around the lot. He motioned us to drive up the hill to one of his campers, explaining how the house is where he keeps his Dogs, and he lives up in the campers. I assume that was because the house was unlivable. He was very unkept guy, his face completely unshaven. He had a loosely fitted shirt stanned and ripped, combined with his equally worn jeans, not to mention missing teeth. Despite his rough demeaner though he was quite friendly. It was like nothing ever bothered this guy, an uncaring friendliness of the sorts.
We had previously texted him, so he already knew to take us straight to one of the many barns on this property; whose condition was that or worse of the house. Some barns were buried waste deep in brambles and miscellaneous objects. Inside the barns was where he kept the chickens. He apologized about letting the chickens out this morning, saying how we are going to have to catch them now. Handing us a jumble of ripped up nets, he pointed out the chickens he was willing to part with. After spending the past hour and a half running around this maze of a junk filled property trying catch chickens, we finally had ourselves 10 Isa browns.
After that, the owner proceeded to show us some of his personal layer flock and other prized birds that he kept for his own enjoyment. There was many different colors and breeds whom I didn't know the name of. When asked where he got all these beautiful birds from he told us that he frequents chicken auctions regularly, and that's why he is able to sell so many birds at a "cheep" price.
These were such beautiful birds, we couldn't resist asking if he would be willing to part with any. After he reluctantly gave us permission to pick three; we choose the prettiest most outstanding birds that we saw. This was where we choose our Easter egger, our jubilee orpington, and barred rock rooster. Some could argue that there were prettier choices or that there is more to picking chickens then just color, but to our untrained eyes these were the most beautiful chickens in the world.
We only had room for 10 chickens at the time, so as much as it hurt to undo some of that hard earned catching finagling around with those nets all afternoon, we ended up having to release three of our ten Isa browns.
We left that place of a dump, with our 8 Isa browns, an Easter egger, a Jubilee Orpington and our Barred rock rooster, all packed up in cardboard boxes in the back of our mini van.
This was how we first got into chicken keeping, little did we know we would have our whole flock nearly wiped by an incurable disease.
We'll see if I get the motivation to write a part two.( sorry for the bad grammar XP)
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I'm way over obsessed with my chickens. I have over 72 now, It turns out certain breeds can be very good mothers, they hatched way to many chicks.
Sorry for the poor quality, and the Chickie who is photobombing(last photo right)
