chickens

I decided to start raising chickens. You may be wondering when I’ve raised chickens before, and the answer is never, but I’ve seen movies (do the chickens have large talons?) and it doesn’t seem very difficult.

So I went on market day and picked out 5 baby chickens and 1 baby rooster. The chickens were about 3 weeks old and the rooster probably a little over a month old. It didn’t take me too long to get to know their personalities. The little brown chicken was the bravest of them all and would come the closest to me. The tiny white one I started calling sleepy because whenever I put out food, she would run to the food and start gorging, but after a few bites she would close her eyes and take a nap right there in the middle of the food.

Sleepy doing what he does best. He might be narcoleptic.

There is Spot who was the smallest but who started growing rapidly and passed up sleepy. There are the two brown and white ones, who seem to be the smartest of the bunch, if you can consider a species that craps where it eats smart.

The rooster is black and gray and quite larger than the others. He uses his size to push the chickens around and if they don’t he’ll just peck at them until they do. He especially likes pecking at the little brown one which irritates me because in just a few days it has turned her more nervous.

The day I got them ,I put them all in a pen in my backyard, and closed it off, but within minutes the rooster escaped and I spent 45 minutes chasing it down to put him back without success. Every time I would lure him out of the bushes, we would go into a footrace and at the moment where I’m about to snatch him, he would turn and I would miss him. 45 minutes of this and I was too tired to continue, so I just left to go to work.

When I got back, I brought home some chicken food (picked it up at Petsmart*) and when I went into the pen, the rooster had gone back inside with the rest. It was annoying that I had chased him for 45 minutes when if I would have just sat somewhere, he would have gone back in himself.

In the short time I’ve had them; they have brought me an incredible amount of joy. Every morning I’ll go down to their pen and open their door and cautiously at first, but now excitedly, they’ll run towards me, crying for food and sometimes even trying to climb on me to get it. All of them run at me except for the rooster. I guess that first day chasing him around for 45 minutes with a bucket is still fresh in his tiny brain.

I have gotten to know them individually and like them for their personalities. This will hopefully make them even tastier when the time comes.

*there isn’t really a pet smart. You mix corn, mill and some other stuff and grind it for feed. I also occasionally feed them bread and bananas.