Chickens

Stripe, the Easter Egger, and an Australorp

We were driving home from Vermont last summer when Jim said, "We should get some chickens."
My response? "ARE YOU CRAZY? As if I don't have enough to do cleaning up after you and the children and shopping and working and planning our lives, you want to add CHICKENS to my long list of things to take care of? No way! Or...wait...I have a better answer: We can get chickens AFTER you build a coop. How's that for a compromise?"

I knew he would never build a coop. Jim just isn't into getting out of the chair in front of the computer for anything other than 1.) emergencies and 2.) picking berries in the backyard.

Here's the problem, though: the chicken idea took root in my brain. The tiniest kernel of chicken thoughts burrowed into my brain and, very quietly, unbeknownst to me, began to grow. About five months ago, I started to think, "Maybe we should get chickens." And then, a month later, I started researching chickens in a haphazard, I-have-nothing-to-do-at-work way. Then, a month after that, I was OBSESSED with chickens. I could not stop thinking about getting chickens, what kind of chickens to get, how to raise them, where to put them, what kind of coop to buy or build, where to put the coop, how to protect the chickens from predators....

At first I tried to hide my chicken thoughts from Jim because I was sure he would say, "AHA! I knew you would come around to the chicken idea!" Eventually, though, I couldn't help myself: I was bringing home coop designs and buying chicken care books. He was bound to find out.

So I told him. His response surprised me: "You really want to get chickens? I thought we decided we weren't doing that." And, not understanding the depth of my obsession, he assumed the chickens were a distant possibility maybe 6 months to a year from now.

Four weeks ago our chicks came in the mail.

A person can buy day-old chicks on the internet and have them shipped to herself--did you know this? Neither did I, but when I discovered it, I was thrilled! I set up my brooding pens, got all the necessary baby chick supplies and waited for the post office to call me up to say the peeping package had arrived. 


I ordered six chicks: two White Leghorns, two Austrolorps and two Easter Eggers. Only days old when they arrived, they were adorable! Three little yellow chicks (White Leghorn), one brown striped chick (Easter Egger) and two black/white/yellow chicks (Australorps). Ordering on the internet, I was assured the chicks were hens, but concerned that I seemed to have gotten three of one kind and only one of another kind. (More on that later...maybe)


The children, of course, adore the chicks. Sometimes I lie and say I got the chickens for the children. Don't believe it. Education smeducation: my kids do their learning at school. And chickens are chickens: they go from cute to ugly to lovely and then they lay eggs. There's really no good excuse for wanting them unless you are a farmer. 


But then, because I was obsessed with chickens and had done a ton of research, I discovered there is a Chicken Swap at the feed store near us every first Sunday of the month--and the first Sunday was coming right up! That very weekend, after church, I piled everyone in the car and drove on out to the feed store. Just to look. For the children. For education.

"You're going to buy more chickens, aren't you?" Jim asked in an accusatory tone.

"No, of course not! I just want to look!" I told him, indignant.

And I really wasn't going to buy anymore chickens. But then we found this lady selling Golden Buff Orpingtons, the kind of chicken Jim professed to want, so I felt we just had to buy two Golden Buff chicks. You know, for Jim. So he could feel like he had representation in the flock.
"What are you going to name your chicks?" I asked Jim as I handed him the box with the two Buffs peeping inside.
"Lunch and Dinner," he replied. I don't think Jim is totally sold on the chicken thing yet...

So we now have eight chicks in the bathtub at home. People ask me, "Where?" And I say, "In the bathtub." And then they ask, "Outside?" which I find a strange question. Sure, up in Vermont people have bathtubs in their backyards, but not in urban Pennsylvania--at least not that I've seen. Of course the chickens are in my house! But they don't just live in the bathtub--I set up their brooding pens inside the bathtub and Jim rigged up their brooder light so it hangs suspended overhead. When the chickens started flying last week, Jim brought in some chicken wire and rolled it over the top of their pens. Chickens in the bathtub is one thing. Chickens all through the house is another.

At four weeks, though, something strange starts to happen to these previously adorable little chicks that were no end of cute: they turn into pullets.

Pullets are not cute. Pullets are the adolescent phase of chickens and, much like the adolescent phase of humans, pullets are not pretty. They are awkward and flighty (literally) and messy and stinky. Their feathers are just coming in, so fluff is falling off and some places look bald while other places look full and lovely and still other places are covered with what look like feather-tipped plastic needles. No one tells you about pullets. People either talk in terms of chickens or chicks. No one mentions the ugly middle stage.

Pullets have not dampened my chicken love, however. In fact, last Sunday I dragged the entire family on Pittsburgh's 2nd Annual Chicks in the Hood Tour. If you have not done this--and have even the slightest interest in urban farming--I highly recommend it! We visited 4 coops on the East End of Pittsburgh and I found no limit to the number of things to oooooh and awwwww over. Lovely. Gorgeous coops, gorgeous chickens, friendly owners--what more could one ask for? (A Chicks in the Hood shirt in my size would have been nice, but I happily took one of the only XL's left....)

Do we have a coop? You may be wondering this.

The answer is no. I reneged on my own conditions. Mostly because, after so much research I realized that the chicks would be in their brooding pen(s) for 4-6 weeks before moving into a coop and I naively thought it would be possible to build a coop in 4-6 weeks.

I do have the plans for the coop and most of the raw materials. Last week Jim and I framed in the walls of the coop. But, just as with the chickens, I do not want any ordinary coop, especially not a coop a person can buy online or in a store. I want a specially designed coop, just for my chickens, one that is fully predator proof. Because I don't want to have pullets in my bathroom again any time soon.