First of all, this thread is so sweet. I love reading all of your posts on why you got chicken fever.
My fiance and I are writers, renting a small house in the country in the rural c ommunity in western NY where I was raised (my fiance moved here from a decaying Steel Town in Ohio). We've always been very shy around people and found a lot of companionship in animals. Neither of us have ever had chickens.
We have been increasingly trying to become self-sufficient, moving away from the disconnection and loss of sacred in our modern food system (like many others here).
I've also battled depression and anxiety for many years, like other chicken fanatics, I wanted to get interested in something uplifting, a responsibility that was modest enough that I could handle it, but that would build my confidence and skills and joy.
The more I look into chickens, the many beautiful varieties and their personalities, I feel I could be like the chicken-farmers whose blogs and videos I've admired.
I decided to use my modest carpentry skills to build a coop. I asked my dad to look over some of my designs. He grew up on a farm, but as an adult he provided for us by working in a factory he hated until he got cancer. He's retired now and has a tendency to spend a lot of time watching t.v. Since I started showing him my designs, it opened up a dialogue about his funny farm stories from his childhood, and every day he gets more obsessed with helping me build a great coop. I didn't always have the best relationship with my dad growing up, but since talking about chickens and working together, I feel we are building some of the best bonding moments of our relationship.
I think it shows how lacking the modern culture is, in meaningful work that nourishes our spirits, that an interest in chickens can transform people so profoundly. I have found that focusing on my coop plans has been a relief from my fixation with politics and bad news and worry. It's uplifting just to be reading the forums of so many people who took action to make more connections with their food source, and life itself.
There is something very radical in the simplicity of deciding to care for your own flock.
I look forward to the day I can bring my neighbors some fresh organic eggs and I think that will be an icebreaker to begin a relationship with people despite my awkwardness. I want to share my eggs with my elderly neighbors, and to share them with my grandparents, and to give them to my sister to feed to my little niece so she grows strong.
Eggs are so simple and beautiful and to be able to feed people from my very own flock, would give me a sense of a job well done, a purpose, and it will speak to them by example, rather than trying to brow-beat about ethics and food systems---just show them another way, by living it. The benefits of that mindset will come across by my actions, not my words.
It says something great about people, that strangers use the internet to help each other out and to share their stories, freely given. In these days, it is wonderful to be warmed by that light.
It amuses me that when the benefits of raising BYC is mentioned, people add that it "teaches your kids responsibility," because I am a 27 year old adult child, and my dad helping me is giving me that lesson too. Better late than never! Cocka-doodle-doo.
I have some named and think they are just freakin wonderful. They are better than TV and there is a bonus with the eggs
I love my flock to DEATH!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
