My Life With Chickens

October 23, 2012

MY LIFE WITH CHICKENS:

You would think having chickens as an animal in your backyard might be slightly different then what your use to but nothing drastic if. You might think, GREAT! We get fresh eggs all the time or, if your a person that doesn't get attached to chickens easily, wonderful fresh Chicken meat for dinner! My experience living with chickens thus far has been very! different then what I expected.

My first surprising experience was walking outside in the morning and finding a chicken standing on top of another chicken, pecking away at the bottom chicken's head. Appalled, I ran back into the house to find my host Mama because I was a little worried that we were going to find a dead chicken soon and ran her outside. She looked at the action going on at our feet and said, "o they are just mating, don't worry". I personally don't think there was much love going on between the two chickens but I just nodded my head and said okay. If you are at all worried about the chickens, I want to reassure you we have no dead chickens.

The second incident I had, was more of an unwanted interaction I had with a chicken. At times if the door to the kitchen is open, the chickens will wonder in and all you have to do is wave your hands and chase them out. Very easy, very straight forward and the chickens seam to understand they aren't wanted in the kitchen but should be outside. So one morning, I'm alone in the house and the chickens started wondering into the kitchen. I do as I normally would and I start chasing them out of the kitchen but this morning one chicken got very confused as to where to go. Instead of running outdoors he/she runs into the living room. I start chasing this chicken around the living room and then the tv room trying to get it back into the kitchen to chase it out the door. It kept turning around and flapping and squawking at me which in turns terrifies me because that beak looks tough enough to break through skin. After much running around and away, I find a broom because the chicken keeps finding shelter under he table. After a good 10min of this cat and mouse chasing, I get the chicken back into the kitchen and out the door. I personally am okay if that never happens again.

My final experience with the chickens is actually turning from a hmm not sure how I feel about that to a, I really like having them around. What I'm talking about is we cohabit our kitchen with chickens. We have a mama chicken and her chicks living in our kitchen with us. They wonder around the kitchen while we're preparing food or hanging out. They have a big bag of food that they feed from and they sleep between our trash and some pots that we don't use. Our chickens are so warmly welcomed into our home because something was eating the chicks when they lived in their pen. At first I was a little taken back by the chickens in the kitchen but now I rather enjoy them there and all the tweeting of the chicks. Now I'm happy to say we have another mama chicken in our kitchen. She has a little spot with a basket where she's trying to hatch her eggs. Hopefully the chicks we have now will be big enough to leave the kitchen when the new chicks hatch. It might get a little cramped in the kitchen if we have all the chicks at once!