We've gone chicken crazy at our house. I'm not even joking. We've got fifty (give or take a few) chickens in our garage, as well as six hens and two roosters in the backyard. There are chickens everywhere. There are chickens right outside my garage door, front door, and back door. I see chickens when I get my morning diet coke, when I wander around my flowerbeds, when I watch the kids jump on the trampoline, and they literally greet me when I drive up. I suppose that wasn't enough chicken for me because I hatched the idea to decorate our kitchen in roosters and the Hobby Lobby chicken section will never be the same.
How you ask? Why you wonder? Frankly, I blame my friends. It started slowly, with a science fair project here and a 4-H project there. They would bring us fresh eggs, and animatedly discuss how interesting it was to own chickens, to watch them hunt and peck, to feed them, and to find eggs every morning like a real-life easter egg hunt. All of this lead us down that infamous road the chicken crossed, and I'm pretty sure I heard some of our friends clucking…."chicken?"
We first feathered our nest for the 4-H broiler project, and last year raised twenty-five broilers from chick to adult for six weeks before youth fair. The kids (and I'm counting my husband here) learned what to feed, how much to feed, when to feed (constantly by the way), and how to hold the chickens by their feet for judging. This animal project was great for us because 1-we don't have a barn, so the little chicks inhabit the garage, and 2-it's short-lived. The kids learned the valuable lessons involved in a 4-H animal project, but mom and dad didn't have to live with livestock year-round. That project spurred my husband to rule the roost and build a chicken coop last spring. We raised DIFFERENT chicks after youth fair to have for our very own. Thus our love for the little red hens was born. Farmer Scroggins (my husband) established himself as first in the pecking order, and those girls followed him all over the yard. We had a blissful summer getting to know them, and waiting for the first eggs. I think I was more excited than anyone the morning we found that first egg--it was a MIRACLE! Instant Facebook moment. And let me tell you, store-bought eggs don't hold a candle to these fresh ones. Yum. We bought ourselves an official egg collecting basket (you can't put all your eggs in just one basket after all), and now gather six eggs daily. For a family of five that just about works out--even when we are out of ketchup, we still have eggs. No one is going to starve around here.
Sadly, my own ignorance disrupted this peaceful chicken existance because I wanted a rooster. I really laid an egg on that one. Now we have two: Hawkeye and Wacky. I don't want them anymore--two free roosters going once….
Not to brood about it, but between the CONSTANT cock-a-doodle-doling and sneak-jump-on-my-back-with-claw attacks, I'm putting them up for adoption. Who knew they could be so MEAN??? They deserve to be kept cooped up and when Farmer Scroggins isn't around--that's exactly where the kids and I like them. And that's all I have to say about that.
So that brings us to the present--where we have invested in FIFTY broiler chickens (again in the garage), and are reliving the process of feeding, watering, and changing bedding, (repeat as often as possible). Youth Fair is just around the corner, and it can't get here soon enough--I love the learning, but sometimes learning stinks (even when you stick your neck out).
I'm ready to reclaim my garage, find a good home for these two "all boy" roosters, and establish my place as mother hen. If you'd told me two years ago that this was how I would be looking forward to spring, I would have said you'd flown the coop, but that was before we had all this fun to crow about.
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