12/11/22

I’ll have to do two posts today to make up for missing yesterday, but one thing that is truly a conversation starter/party trick for me is when I tell people that my family has a chicken coop and five chickens that live in our backyard. I don’t know why, but people really seem to find this so interesting- I guess it’s just a random thing for people to have. (for context, my family lives in the middle of the city, it’s not like we live on a farm or even on the outskirts of town).

the chickens were a quarantine project, so we got them in November 2020 after spending most of the summer working on building the coop. we came home with six baby chicks, and when they’re that small, you can’t tell what sex they are. we ended up getting really lucky and having five hens and one rooster (you can’t have more than one rooster within city limits, they’ll fight). but also, because we aren’t skilled in animal husbandry, and we didn’t want to risk baby chicks being born, our rooster went to live on a farm with one of my mom’s coworkers. thus leaving us with five hens, Justine, Fletcher, Schwarbie, Ruth, and Chakira.

lots of typical questions I usually have to answer once people find out that I have chickens: yes, we eat the eggs; yes, the eggs are different colors but they taste delicious; no, we never have to worry about cracking an egg and having a baby chick in it because there is no rooster here to fertilize the eggs; no, we don’t sell the eggs but we do give them away; so on and so forth.

I honestly love my girls, they are just so unbothered and wonderful garbage disposals. we’ve been really lucky and blessed that we haven’t had any run-ins with predators or illnesses (I am knocking on wood as I write this). because we’ve had them for a few years now, the novelty has definitely worn off, but I was telling my friend’s family about them last night and they were SO intrigued that it reminded me that my girls are pretty interesting. so I felt like they deserved their own post where I could brag on them a little bit.

things I am grateful for: my chicken gals; farm fresh eggs; and having a wonderful ice breaker.