Chickens Part One

The Beginning of Our Flock

We have a variety of backyard chickens today. But we started with six Cochin Bantams and seven Sweet Grass turkeys. We started our poultry journey in July of 2022. Our children are a part of 4H and while Kelsey chose goats as an animal project, Abigail and Elliot were interested in chickens. Drew and I wanted chickens as well, so it was no hardship to agree. I mean, fresh eggs every day and chickens are fun to watch roaming around the yard. They are such quirky creatures.

The cochins were the sweetest birds we’ve had so far. Luckily there was only one rooster. They were easy to handle. The rooster and one of the hens were mostly white. The kids named them Snowman and Snowflake. The other five hens were varying shades of gray and black. Bedrock, Diamond, Smokey and Angel were the names of the other hens. Bedrock and Diamond were mostly black with random gray feathers spread throughout their bodies. Angel was all black and Smokey had a black head that lightened to gray at her neck and became lighter down to her feet. At one point we thought we had lost Bedrock. It was time for our County Fair and Abigail wanted to show her, but we couldn’t find her. So, I told Abby we would have to look more for her later, to pick a different hen, because we’ve got to go. She was gone for a couple days then suddenly, she reappeared! She was around for the rest of that day but then was gone again. Drew and I decided to look in all the nooks and crannies of our yard to try and find her and we did. She was under a bush in our back yard laying on a nest of eggs! We let her hatch them out, she ended up with three chicks. They we the cutest things and we were excited to see what color pattern they would have. However, because of Marty and other dogs they didn’t survive long. We have had a couple broody hens since then but only one other chick has hatched on our homestead and it sadly only made it one day.

Snowman was such a caring and sweet rooster. He defended his hens always, but his last act was against our neighbor’s dog, a golden retriever named Norman. Snowman was successful in saving his hens but did not survive the ordeal. Which of course was the first lesson for our kiddos of heartaches that can come with owning livestock. We were able to get a rooster from our cousin since they had too many. Pikachu wash also a cochin bantam and a beautiful orange color. He was just as sweet and protective of the hens as Snowman. We have one chicken left out of our original flock and that is our black cochin bantam, Angel.

Originally, we did not have any fencing to keep out predators. We had turned our 16×8 foot shed into a coop for these birds and added an enclosed run for them enjoy as they pleased. They free ranged while we were home. However, replacing chickens can get costly, so we put a basic fence around most of our backyard and up one side. This also allowed our cats and dogs to be able to roam freely anytime we were away.