My Life with Chickens

Now that our chicken experiment has come to an end with the death of the last one last week, I though I would share my experience.

I had certainly not wanted pets but after thoughtful evaluation, I decided that one type of pet would be acceptable: chickens.  I had the following reasons:

• Chickens would not use a lot of money to feed
• • they can eat grass and table scraps
  • Store-bought food is fairly cheap: less than five dollars per chicken per month
• If something goes wrong with your pet dog’s health, people expect you to take it to the vet (thus spending hundreds of dollars per incident), if something goes wrong with the chicken’s health, they expect you to eat it.
• Besides goats, which we did not have room for, chickens are a rare pet that produces something valuable: an egg every day or two.

We bought four chicks,  very cute little balls of down.  I had expected to buy them, and put them out in the house we bought for them, provide them with food and water, and that would be it.  Not so for baby chickens!  They needed lots of warmth.  We had to make a special bed for them where their temperature would stay around 90 degrees for weeks.  Caring for them was a lot of work.

Finally they grew old enough to put outside into their house.  As it turns out, they like to be free, roaming the yard, not safe in their cage.  Endless hours of tearing up weeds and good plants alike, and the yard was barren wherever they went.

They grew visibly each day; it was incredible.  Their voices changed from cute little cheeps to adult voices, they started to crouch for us, and finally they started to lay eggs.  It turns out that laying their first egg is a traumatic experience for them.  They don’t know what to do and if they’re free in the yard, they might run away to a yard where a dog would eat them.

When they became adults, their personalities blossomed.  Though they looked similar (all being Rhode Island Reds), each one had its own distinct personality, some domineering, some submissive, some dumb, some smart.  I had never thought that they would have so much personality or be so cute.  You can see the pleasure when they’re having a dust bath.  Having them come running up to you when they see you or when you call them is very endearing.

I was wrong on so many expectations:

Expectation	Actuality
They would be bland	full of personality, and mischief
They would be dumb	they learned their names, simple commands, where they were supposed to go, where they weren’t supposed to go
They would be cheap	they need a decent house, equipment for food and water etc Vet bills? if you care about your chicken as a pet, you won’t leave it to die in misery (though it’s really hard to find a qualified vet in my area)
They wouldn’t need much time	they are very messy, cleaning up their poop is very time consuming, esp. if you want them to live in a hygienic environment

Good bye little pets!