Grown Up Talk.

Listen People. Chickens die a lot.. on their own.

So No. I don't mind eating chicken. I like it. It tastes good. 

But--I won't kill any of my own chickens.

And-- I'm not shocked and shaken when we lose a chicken now and then.

It's part of having chickens.

I might complain about it a LOT though.. I'm working on that.

A few of my "Grown Up" chicken keeper friends have no problem dispatching a neck like they were snap peas. Swift and Vulcan .

Therein lies my 'Chicken Hypocrisy' debate.. Were I to seriously "Keep it Real" barn yard style I would be like this;

Lately I've been looking at the pages of people and first of all... I'm not really sure y'all realize how beautiful your worlds are, but you don't have nosy neighbors who don't believe that you should be eating your own eggs. 

So for those of you who are limited zoning  

Riddle Me This: do you dispatch your roosters or re-home them?

I've gone back and forth about culling a chick who starts to show signs of being of the unwanted sex. Sorry Guys... although I'm sure some of you had it coming.

(I'm looking at you mean anti-social neighbor whose dog pissed on my shoe )

Children don't like it when you kill things they name.  And honestly folks I'm too big of a bleeding heart to look into their big eyes and say, "Sorry baby but we gonna kill him, bless your heart". 

Him of course are the male chicks you have irresponsibly let your children name--and then had to rehome-all our roosters of the BBCE microfarm....

Spike (White Crested Blue Polish), Forrest/Jenny (Turken), Kramer (Splash White Showgirl) and last but not least Ralphie as in Christmas Story (Black/Blue Bearded Silkie). 

He really does look like what Ralphie would look like.. if he were a chicken. How could I kill something who represents Raphie? I mean come on people. 

Got distracted.. sorry

So absolutely no disrespect to those of you Farm Sturdy people who aren't me and have no problem with this. I mean that in the best sense.

How does everyone handle this?

What are some good ways to learn to buck up and do whats right or......WELL, come on they're little kids.. they'll believe pretty much anything.

Dead Fancy Bird Zen

It doesn't matter how far I travel I'm always reminded that born and raised in Idaho back in the 1970s was about living in a farming community. Everyone had chickens, gardens, squash patches, fruit trees and most of all grown up trees. Big trees.
I took from this upbringing the revelation that there is inherent good in those who care for their environment. Their land, their family, their character.

So why am I writing about a Dead Fancy Bird? 
HRH Margaret is.. or rather, was, my fancy breed bird. She was a Belgian d'Uccle Mille Fleur.

My Spidy-senses should have been tipped off by the fact that her name weighed more than she did. 

If anyone has happened to catch my previous posts, on my ill-fated dabblings into the magic of hatching eggs, you will understand the following better than anyone else.


Maggie was the lone chick to have survived my inept hatching contraptions and various flock attacks by dogs and the weather.  She was almost a year old, and quite gorgeous. You might remember that I ordered all those wonderful fancy eggs not too long ago. Yep. I thought I was Caroline fricking Ingalls. In reality it was a little closer to this:

Anyhow-- she managed to survive my best attempts to snuff her here at Chicken Survivor Island.
Over this last year it seems I've become the female equivalent of Lenny from the Grapes of Wrath.
Thank God someone talked me out of rabbits. Gretchen Anderson might have had to give some quote on how many Backyard Chicken Keepers go off the deep end.

Ok.. I have to stay focused.

Maggie's breed type and champion lines were what attracted me to her. Her brother Winston died last year from-- I kid you not-- a heart attack after a vicious puppy barking incident involving my chihuahua.
Heart attacks in certain fowl are not uncommon. This can actually happen in some breeds of birds... and I knew that.
I also knew that even with champion breed lines, certain birds requires a home for which those types of breeds are more suited.

So...at the end of the day I'm left with no one to blame and a Dead Fancy Bird. I get the Zen and learned my lesson from her death. So please don't flame me with hate mail.

Still, the Idaho Matriarch in me didn't like not having something to show for the effort. Needless to say I have a ziploc bag full of beautiful speckled super soft feathers that I'm determined to make into jewelry.
I'm sure my creations will be picked up immediately for Paris Fashion Week and I'll start a charity in HRH Maggie's name dedicated to congenital heart defect among fancy bird breeds.

But most likely they will end up gracing our Holiday Tree... glued to macaroni art and covered in glitter.

I promise to think about my Dead Fancy Bird Zen every time I look at the feathers.

New Chicks on the Block.

I couldn't resist. On Easter Sunday we happened to be in Parma, and I just had to stop by and see Jim and Martha and pick up something for me.
I had fully intended to pick up a red silkie.. nothing more.
Until I saw the sweetest partridge silkie with the biggest darkest eyes. I made her mine and named her Wilhelmina.
My son had to have one of his own as well. So we picked up 9 month old Amerauacana/Easter Egger and named her Ruby.

Ruby and Wilhelmina (Mina) are settled in nicely at home. Pictures to come.

T-Minus three days...

Giddy with egg-citement.

My chicks are coming, my chicks are coming! This Thursday I will be picking up my chicks. My order has increased and changed a bit.
I was expecting to have a coop well underway in the construction stages by now. Unfortunately some sad family business kept us from being able to dedicate any amount of time to it.

Instead I used my handy-dandy computer to email my favorite chicken breeder- Jim and changed my order.
All are 1 day old chicks. This hopefully will allow for more time to get our coop built and chicken ready within the three months before introducing them to the wilds of our backyard.
2- Australorp
2- Ameraucana
10- Silver Laced Wyandotte

Did I mention that Jim Schwartz will guarantee the sex?!  How awesome is that! If a little rooster hardware begins to appear I can just swap him for a hen from Jim. (I wouldn't even begin to know how to sex a rooster.. I guess I'll know when he starts crowing).

I am getting a few insurance chicks as I hear it is normal for casualties along the way. And I'm going to try my best not to buy a few silkies... I wonder if they make a chicken patch for addictions.

I think I've almost perfected my coop plans and am now in the bidding war process. Thanks to everyone for their input on the coop design and for letting me know what is important to you. I promise if my coop goes well.. I will be happy to endorse the builder to you. And YES- for those DIY'ers I made sure to ask about a DIY Kit option.
To be safe I want to make sure the work is quality work. I've had bids so far everywhere from $200-400 in price range. While it would be easier to go with the lowest bid, I want to make sure that I go with quality too.
From the input I got the average spending range is $275- $375.

So keep checking for updates, better yet, become a subscriber and you can receive updates as they come. Save yourself the time of checking in every day.

For those of you who have chicks coming the release date for most hatcheries is Feb 17--- so make sure your brooders are ready! For information on setting up a brooder visit one of the links visit Backyardchickens.com

Bawk- Bawk!