So does anyone have any farm or homestead type animals or pets?

I have a flock of twenty-four chickens. They are Black Australorps, Barred Plymouth Rocks, Ameraucanas, White Leghorns, Golden Laced Wyandottes, Silver Laced Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds and one tiny multi-breed yard chicken. LOL!

I have to say that I absolutely love chicken-keeping. As I am typing this, they are wandering around the yard, scratching up roots and finding bugs. If I could only get them to concentrate their efforts along the edges of flower beds and walkways, they would be great gardeners or yard workers! They go into their fenced chicken yard and hen house each evening when I feed them there. I get eggs from them which I sell for a little income.

We live out in the country, but it seems like so many people now are keeping small urban flocks of a few hens to be able to have healthy, flavorful eggs and free fertilizer for their gardens.

I miss having chickens so much! We had Reuin ducks, growing up as well as chickens.
I claimed the Golden Laced Wyandottes as my own (Goldie, Buffy and Precious), but we also had Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, one game hen that I don't think we ever figured out the breed of, and one Silver Laced Wyandotte. I loved petting our silver laced wyandotte Lacey, that chicken was so soft...she hated being touched, but sooo soft!
If I were to get chickens again, which I plan to, I'm going to stick with the Golden Laced Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds. I found them to be the most amicable of the breeds we had growing up. But then I also want some Ameraucanas for the green eggs. They were the friendliest...and they seemed to have less issues with eggs than some of the others did. Our little game hen laid maybe 10 eggs a year, not helpful for egg selling, and the Barred Rocks tended to have either soft shell issues, or double yolked eggs etc. So while they laid a lot, it seemed to take more out of them, if that makes sense.

One of these days we'll get back to a house with a yard so we can have our own little flock and garden again.

Do you find your chickens getting into your gardens at every opportunity? We always had that issue. They'd eat the buds off of some of our plants, tomatoes especially!, and so our fruit harvest suffered even after we started covering everything in netting. haha.

It sounds like you really do miss chicken tending. I know I would too. Ours are not as cuddley as it sounds like yours were. I can catch and hold our little black game hen, Midnight, but she is not thrilled about it. She has to be around 6 years old. I know she doesn't lay eggs any more, but I love her anyway. :) The others are friendly, in the sense that they will run up to me and gather around, but if I reach to touch one, they scoot away fast. Our Ameraucanas eggs are anywhere from pale blue to robins egg blue to light green to a sort of pale muddy green. Because of that, those are my favorites. But egg customers usually like the brown ones better - at least those that have a preference.

So far, our chickens have not really bothered any gardens. But then they have a lot of space to roam in. The veggie garden proper is out in the unprotected open on the opposite side of the ...yard area... and they don't even go to that side of the yard all that much. We live on 25 acres. The two largest raised bed planter things are near the house, but are pretty tall and have bent cattle panel sort of cages over them for vines to attach to. So the chickens won't be able to get to those. However, the other three raised bed planters are lower and open topped and the two plain old raised beds are probably going to be open season for them. Oh, well. The in-the-ground garden is huge, so we will still have plenty of veggies. :)

I hope you can get into a different location before too long, so you can get some more chickens to tend. Good luck!

I DEMAND PICTURES OF CHICKENS AND DUCKS!!

I would love to keep ducks or chickens, but my guy has a background in microbiology and isn't too keen with all the diseases birds can carry. He did say that I could get guinea hens depending on where we lived. :3

Oh wow, yeah we lived on like 1/3 of an acre. So they didn't have that much room to roam around on before they came up to a garden area!

Did you hatch your chickens, or did you buy them as adults? My brother did a project in like middle school that involved hatching chicken eggs, so ours we'd had since they were hatchlings and they'd been handled the entire time. I think that was part of why mine were so personable. I tended to mine the most, any scraps I had from the table would go out to mine, so my birds knew to come to me when I came outside. I'd go and sit out there with them and they'd come and roost on my legs etc. It was glorious!
We have a house, that would be perfect for chickens in another state, one of these years I think we'll get transferred back there. Or at least I hope.

Longcat- I just checked for some...I don't have any pics from that long ago. *woe* I'm sure I've got some printed out somewhere, but I'll have to find them to scan them in etc. I'll put that on my to do list. (I feel my birds had perfect birdy postures, they were incredibly beautiful blonde birds!)

Originally Posted by ~LONGCAT~

I DEMAND PICTURES OF CHICKENS AND DUCKS!!

I would love to keep ducks or chickens, but my guy has a background in microbiology and isn't too keen with all the diseases birds can carry. He did say that I could get guinea hens depending on where we lived. :3

Hahaha, Longcat! :) I will be glad to oblige as soon as I can, and as soon as I find somewhere to read up on how to post photos here. I hope, hope, hope there is no resizing for me to do.

Yeah, bird flu (I think it is called.) is scary. I'm sure there are other diseases besides that one, but that is the one that is in the news sometimes. But it rarely seems to be a problem except in rare far away cases. I wonder if it has to do with horrid living conditions for the birds or something...? Guineas are great 'watch dogs' they say. They create a real fuss if there is something or someone strange coming around. Good luck in getting yours when you can.

---------- Post added 03-26-2014 at 01:47 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Melody

Did you hatch your chickens, or did you buy them as adults? My brother did a project in like middle school that involved hatching chicken eggs, so ours we'd had since they were hatchlings and they'd been handled the entire time. I think that was part of why mine were so personable. I tended to mine the most, any scraps I had from the table would go out to mine, so my birds knew to come to me when I came outside. I'd go and sit out there with them and they'd come and roost on my legs etc. It was glorious!
We have a house, that would be perfect for chickens in another state, one of these years I think we'll get transferred back there. Or at least I hope.

We got our chickens by ordering chicks from a catalog. It was at two different times, not all at once. And then Midnight, the little game hen, was given to us as a full grown hen.

Oh, that sounds so lovely to have chickens that tame and personable. It was great that your brother did that project so that it turned out that way. I would love to have a hen or two roost on my legs... I think! Hehehe! Yes, ours get our veggie and fruit scraps too, and they love them.

Today is dreary and overcast again. Bummer! And we're also babysitting a relative dog. He is big and rambunctious and I know he'd go after the chickens if they were loose, so they have to stay in their pen today. If he gets picked up early enough I might let them out for about an hour before night.

Luckily, the site will resize images that are too large. But to be kind to slower computers you can always hide them behind a spoiler bar.
Yeah he trends to be quick to point out the hazards of birds when I ask if we can have one. We do have a parakeet, but no duckies.
Birds And Their Droppings Can Carry Over 60 Diseases - Medical News Today
along with bird flu, there's e.coli, salmonella, and a variety of chlamydia that can be spread from birds. But I love them anyways.

Um.. I really hope that I don't get in trouble for posting here? This is a really old topic after all.
My sincere apologies if I shouldn't have resurrected it, but I didn't see any other chook topics.
This one was already here, and still on the first page of the forum.

I have a flock of 32, plus a few maybe? I have 3 Golden Comets, 3 Silver Laced Wyandottes, 6 White Leghorns, 9 Buff Orpingtons, and a whole big ole bunch of tiny mixed breed mutt nankin/bantams.
I want more SLWs though. I really do love that breed so much. Really laid back pretty plumed chooks.
And personality wise they are a lot like my fluffy big booty Buffys. Super tame and spoiled too. :D
I love chicken keeping. I haven't purchased store eggs for about 5 years now. They taste weird to me now.
I guessed it's where I'm used to eating the ones I get from my girls? And I feed them really well. <3

If you've never heard of the Chicken Chic google her, she's like a guru for chook help and info.

11 Chickens a turkey dogs

What breeds of animals do you have Turquoise Heart?

Our neighbors and my family shared Chickens! I loved holding them, they're so soft!
But he kept our share when we moved. I miss having chickens!