Chickens

This summer we had a pair of egg laying hens come to visit for the month of July.  We got them from RentACoop a nice little business that rents out chicken coops, hens and feed on a month to month basis, with an option to purchase. 
The kids were immediately drawn to the birds, with 2 year old Rachel introducing them to Daddy as "my chicken sisters."  Multiple chicken related names were tossed about, but the kiddodiddos quickly settled on Fred and George, after the Weasley twins from Harry Potter.  I was just as quick to point out that these were girls, not boys and insisted that they lengthen the names to make them more girly.  Fred and George morphed into Winifred and Georgina, but were seldom referred to by their longer names.  George was smaller and feisty, always giving a good chase for the kids.  Once Fred got to know us a bit, she would squat down and get ready to be picked up when we approached. 

Simon turned out to be the chicken master of the family.  At age 4, he was often seen running through the yard with a chicken under his arm, football style.  He chased them through the sprinkler a few times and he slid them down the slide once.  I only saw the end of the process (lots of desperate flapping) and discouraged him from doing it again.  He was always very careful to put them away when he came inside. 

Jonny (6) liked the thrill of the chase.  He invited a friend over one day saying "come on lets chase the chickens."   His friend readily agreed, but when Jonny was giving detailed instuctions on how to pick the birds up, his friend said "whoah.  I don't actually want to catch one.  I just want to chase."  I thought that was hilarious.  Jonny liked checking for eggs.  They each laid one per day.  Fred laid medium sized eggs and George  laid large ones.  Once he was peeking through a screen in the back of the coop and actually saw an egg coming out.  Exciting? Jonny liked to exclaim as he came inside after collecting "It's a two egg day!"

James (11) thought chickens were "awesome"  he did a fair amount of egg collecting and putting the chickens away at the end of the day.    He was comfortable handling the chickens although he didn't do it as nearly as much as the younger boys. 

Mia (9) didn't think the chickens were as good as a dog (what she really wants.)  She also resented them for pooping on her best friend  (the only casualty.)  She held them once or twice and collected eggs once or twice and helped pen them up during a storm.  She gets points for being a good sport for sure.

Rachel called them her chicken sisters at first and liked to be outside with them and share strawberries with them.  She got the clean ones from the patch, the birds got the buggy ones.  But then one day, she tripped when she was heading up to the top of the yard to see them and she blamed them for the accident.  (I was there, they were innocent.)  So then she said they were scary and stayed away. 

Gary, not an animal lover, did not seem to mind having the chickens around.  He helped move the coop into place and also helped drag the coop under cover in a Super Derechio or however you spell "land hurricane." He even picked up a chicken once and said it wasn't so bad.  He gets points for being a awesome husband and good sport about having animals on the property. 

I enjoyed having the chickens.  They were fun to watch from the window or the porch as they searched for bugs to eat.  They did that all day long, much to my delight.  There was a noticable decrease in ticks, spiders, gnats, bees, wasps and ants.  Only thing that didn't seem to decrease was mosquitoes.  They were soft to hold.  They reliably gave eggs.    They were quiet.  They encouraged the kids to spend time outside.    They were pretty low maintenance.  The coop needed moving every few days (to prevent poo build up/smells.)   It was on wheels so that was easy.  It needed scrubbing once a week, the kids helped with that, it was pretty funny watching them play rock/paper/scissors to see who had to scoop out the piece of poo they found.  James lost that one, but then used twigs as chopsticks to solve that problem.

I would have to say that having chickens was easier than I thought it would be and rewarding too.   I highly recommend the www.RentACoop.com experience.  Their chickens were incredibly gentle and friendly.  They tolerated lots of handling by the youngest kiddodiddos.  My friends who came to visit were amazed and said that the chickens they had as kids never would have tolerated handling like that.  These were just great birds.  If all chickens were this nice, I think more people would have them.