Chickens

I love chickens...

They are by FAR the easiest "farm" animal to start off with when you're venturing into the realm of a backyard farm. No matter what size yard you have, as long as you aren't under restrictions in your area, you can have a few chickens. Not only do they reward you with fresh eggs almost daily, they can be a fine source of entertainment.

When Jeff first mentioned chickens to me, I thought he was crazy!! Not because the idea of fresh eggs weren't appealing, but because I wondered if he was biting off more than he could chew. But in the end, he got his way (haha!), and I discovered that it wasn't too much work after all. 

The worst part of having chickens are the predators that are lurking around, just waiting for the opportunity to snatch one up. I didn't realize there were so many of those in our woods until after we had lost a few. In the first batch of chickens we got (our "experimental" batch), we had 6 total. Of those 6, 4 of them were murdered by our neighbors dog. (We hate that thing!) I say murdered because the ridiculous dog managed to get into our FENCED IN BACKYARD to get at those chickens!! Seriously?! How does that even happen?!? The dog was trapped in our backyard, and couldn't get out, she was just on a mission to get those chickens and didn't pay any attention to how she got in our backyard. Ordinarily, I think animals will be animals--of course that dog would be tempted with the chickens, but this dog is never chained up, has the run of the entire neighborhood, dragging trash and the like around into everyone's yard. On top of that, she attempts to attack anyone (including us) on our front porch or in our front yard period. God knows the greatest relief of my life came when our neighbors' announced they were moving!! :o)  But back to the chickens...


So we've lost several chickens since then in occasional massacres. Never again to the neighbors' dog (not after we called animal control on her), but to other "wild" animals like possums, raccoons, weasels, and the like. 


Even with all the trouble we've had with our chickens entering into their reward much earlier than we had planned, they're still worth it. So this year, more chickens will be purchased, and more fresh eggs will be enjoyed, and we wouldn't have it any other way.