wednesday white: chickens

After losing our little Lucky, we added five hens to our chicken family.  Excessive?  Perhaps.  Today three of our fanciest ladies are headed to their very first fashion shoot – I’ll be sure and share pics on the blog.  This morning I’ll be busy bathing and blow-drying these little divas.

Did you ever see the $100,000 chicken house Neiman’s put up for sale last year?  I admittedly chuckled at that amount.  I read that the price included a farm, designed & delivered onsite including the heritage flock, garden beds, gardening equipment, and one year hands-on training for the future flock owner on how to sustainable grow their own feed and raise a healthy flock.  For every house/farm sold, a handsome donation was made to Livestock Conservancy, a non profit organization that promotes heritage and heirloom livestock.

My gals probably wouldn’t argue if set up with such fancy digs.

For those of us with more modest budgets, here is a set of $39 plans for a this pretty swanky coop.  My friend, Terry, actually built this very coop with her husband and it is AMAZING!!!  Is there such as thing as coop envy?

Meanwhile, the chicken scene in our life is pretty simple. They’re happy dining on the bugs and grass in our yard and snacking on blueberries, bananas, oranges, and organic oatmeal.  Every morning they meet me by the porch and enthusiastically nosh on their les fruits du jour…

And our chickens hang out with us.  They stunt double as homework managers…

Canine companions.  This took some training.

Birthday party hostesses.

And just plain crazy entertainment.  Here is Chapeau, our Polish hen.  We did buy chicken diapers so some of our hens can roam our house with no accidents.  Another post entirely.

We realized that second grade geography homework puts Chapeau to sleep.

With me here is Chatoiement, our little rescue hen who dutifully lays an egg a day.  Chatoiement means “shimmering” in French.

A surprise rescue…

The way we ended up with Chatoiement is a sweet story.  Last May I thought it would be fun to visit this chicken auction I heard about that’s an hour away in Alabama.  Wow, was that a colorful event – there are no words.  We arrived a little late so all the chickens were sold.  I asked a nice younger farmer if there were any chickens still for sale and he looked around to see if anyone could spare a chicken.  He told me all were sold except one hen.  He walked my daughter and I to a dark corner of a shed area with a dirt floor…and there stood this one little hen in a rusty cage – she was all skinny and pitiful.  She was left behind because nobody wanted her – meaning no one was willing to even pay $3 for her.  How sad!!!!  I was wondering where they were going to take her….where would this poor little gal end up?  So I said “we’ll take her!”  

I held her like a baby for a minute and I couldn’t help but notice the guy looking at me like I was crazy.  I asked if this was the way I was supposed to hold her.  He said, “ma’am, I ain’t never held a chicken – we just grab ’em by their feet and carry ’em upside down.”  

I thought our  little hen that nobody wanted deserved a fancy name.  So Chatoiement seemed perfect.  Turns out she’s such a doll.  Every day she comes to our keeping room window and squawks when she’s ready to come inside and hang out then lay an egg.  Yes, she prefers laying her egg indoors.  For now she has a little box inside a planter in our kitchen.  

Chickens are now a part of our family.  On our last trip to Atlanta I found these crazy boxers and decided they were a must.

My patient husband played along.  I’d say he’s a keeper ; )

For more surprising chicken laughs and general animal/kid entertainment in our life, you can follow along on my instagram right here.