Chickens being chickens. share your pics, videos, and stories.

I didn't see an obvious chicken story/picture sharing thread for general chicken-ness.

We got chickens a couple days ago! Yay! After years of researching chickens and sitting other people's chickens, we got 17, 3 year old hens from a friend who wanted a change of pace. I imagined they would need some time to get used to their new home, their new people, and their new way of life. Nope. They had no problem scratching around, eating bugs, eating greens, hopping the fence, hopping onto my lap.

The previous owner raised them well. They are very chill and very friendly. They aren't bothered by my three year old throwing greens at them or hanging out with them under their coop.

The first night I had to toss them one by one into their coop, but the second night they all filed in on their own.

Anyway share your pictures and stories of chickens being chickens.

I’ve been unsuccessful in righting my sideways photos, but I hope you’ll forgive!

Stuck together a quick video of the dust bath. Chickens are so entertaining!

I have six of about 4 month old.

We were new to chickens and had recently moved our girls outside. Their run and coop were very well secured and covered... but one went missing. Ohh the sadness! A couple hours after the discovery, grief already processed, I went to clean and lifted an overturned dish and there she was! Now how she flipped a dish over on top of herself and didn't bother to stand up and escape, we'll never know.

My chickens found out how tasty black walnut is and now they are hooked. I cracked them 20 nuts a day and my harvest will only last 2 months. So I went over friend's house and picked another 1000.

My family has a 9-10 year old hen and she still lays. Here’s hoping she’ll make it past sixteen, the oldest known chicken. She’s the one in the middle.  Back her youth she was the only uncatchable hen out of dozens.

We only have four chickens and a banty rooster. Two blue orpingtons and two hylines that have been nicknamed little and big red. Can't tell apart the two orpingtons which is just as well because one is a freeloader, she's only just a year old and lays shell less or soft shelled eggs a couple of times a week. So long as she's healthy, we will let her get away with this as they are so cute and good natured.

They live in a caged area where their coop is and every morning, I let them out for 1/2 hour to wander about a fenced area while I walk the dog (the chickens are kept away from home in a community garden). We usually get three or four eggs every day. However, for the last couple of weeks, there's only been one or two eggs in the morning. It's summer in the southern hemisphere and I thought that due to the warmer weather, one of the hylines wasn't laying or perhaps she was laying later in the day and someone else was collecting the afternoon egg.

This morning, when I returned from the walk, little red was missing.  Looked all around the grass and under the cabbages where she's hidden her eggs before several months ago and still no sign of her. Called again and she finally scurried out from under some long grass. Checked where she'd been hiding and found a clutch of 10 eggs that the little tart had hidden.

So much for hylines supposedly not being as broody.

Felt really guilty taking them and definitely will be cutting back all the grass this weekend.

We had a dead tree fall over in a storm a few weeks ago, so we cut it up and piled the logs for now. So naturally...

Howdy!

I'm a fan of chicken stories. Love them!
I like the birds, if only because they can be so .. creative in chickening around. My flock has, over the years, waxed and waned, and I have had various breeds and numbers.

Some years back I had a flock of Silver Grey Dorking chickens. They weren't the best producing birds, but they were fun and I enjoyed having them around. (They are one of the few breeds my husband has an affinity for. I don't ask silly questions about why, I just go with it.)
So, I had the start of the flock and the year later "expansion". When I added the new birds, they had trouble finding roosting spots and some of them would roost on the fence to the outside of the chicken yard - my mistake for not foreseeing the potential problems.
What we presume to be the local feral dog pack found the easy snack, and I lost about half my flock in one night - just pulled off the fence.
Two weeks later, what we presume was the local "large predatory cat" took the rest of the flock. I was Not Happy. We cleaned up and went on.
Until Singular Chicken showed up at the back door, rather determinedly insisting on getting fed.


She decided that the dog and I were enough for her to have as a flock, and she would turn up every morning for "bonding time" and feed. She was spoiled. She also learned that she could boss the dog around, so she was happy in her revised flock.
Husband and I decided that starting another flock, but being smarter about it, would be a good idea.
We moved the coop into the back yard, where it was closer to the house. We researched and eventually added African goslings to the chick order.  Two weeks before the new chicks arrived, Singular Chicken disappeared. I like to think that, since I couldn't find out where she spent her nights, that she's found some other flock to hang out with. A very cool chicken.



The mixed flock is colorful, interesting, and very fun.
Raising African goslings was a HUGE adventure. They did become what we had hoped for and, over the past two years we have had them, we have not lost a chicken to any predator. Well worth it.


I will happily add chicken stories and pictures of the flock, if y'all are interested. I have a YouTube channel where I (infrequently) pop unedited videos of the birds.
I sell the eggs to pay for the feed, and they are more or less self-supporting. I really need to firm up my business practices, and see about making it a really good self-supporting or even profitable sideline, so will happily take advice on that matter.
Currently, I have 8 Dorking hens, 1 Dorking Rooster, 1 "Other" Rooster who is going into the freezer eventually, and 14 other assorted breed hens. I'll be adding another 15 birds in the Fall, and hope to add 6 birds this Spring.  Lots of potential for chicken stories,and goose stories, and ...

"By all means.....take the couch!  I'll just have a cozy seat over here on the floor....." (sigh)

New chicks

More new chicks

I was attaching the chicken wire together on the chick addition when the chick flew up to see what I was doing.

It's autumn in NZ so the chickens are enjoying treats of sunflower seed heads, windfall apples, squash, globe artichoke and flax seeds in addition to their bunches of kale, comfrey and sorrel



Having problems embedding the video, hope this works

Sure took a lot of tries to get one good photo.

This tiny hen sat on 6 goose eggs and brought her brood to maturity!


This hen raised this brood from 8 eggs I brought from the UK to France - some of the eggs were more than a month old!


This is George our Brahma cockerel in front of our chicken shed


Our chickens never eat our veg and always use the paths. Hoho.....


When I want to plant a new area the poultry clean it up for me. One of our Dachshunds is supervising that the job's done well.


Our chickens clean up around the shrubs and keep snakes away from the house


Chicken with chicks and some pheasant chicks they raised in front of the henhouse


Our chickens are trained to pick ticks and lice off our angora goats after shearing. The goats love it!

Wow Irene you have a beautiful place, and a coop to dream of.  Probably the best behaved chickens to boot. Mine not only reek havoc on my garden, but they managed to get the gate open yesterday, and did some major damage on the veggies I was hardening off.  Sigh, I love them anyway the stinkers.

Irene Kightley wrote:This tiny hen sat on 6 goose eggs and brought her brood to maturity!

That hen is to be admired and praises sung! I can't convince my actual geese to sit a nest and they're busy filling two nests with goose eggs!

Irene Kightley wrote:This hen raised this brood from 8 eggs I brought from the UK to France - some of the eggs were more than a month old!

You are an amazingly brave person. That hen, also, is to be praised. Such a feat!
(I'm hoping a hen that went broody last Spring will try again. I intend to leave her to it, this year.)

Irene Kightley wrote:This is George our Brahma cockerel in front of our chicken shed

George is gorgeous! A very handsome rooster. Is he a good rooster, as well?

Irene Kightley wrote:Our chickens never eat our veg and always use the paths. Hoho.....

No comment. You have an amazing and beautiful garden, and some beautiful chickens.

Irene Kightley wrote:When I want to plant a new area the poultry clean it up for me. One of our Dachshunds is supervising that the job's done well.

I have only recently discovered the love of my hens for gardening work. I was finally able to finish the last of a bed, only to return from a neighborly visit to find to find my geese standing atop it.
The fencing goes up tomorrow, hopefully. At least the sweet potato slips I have planned for the area will be able to recover from chicken attack should they grow out of the fenced area.

Irene Kightley wrote:Our chickens clean up around the shrubs and keep snakes away from the house

And you have a very handsome Tom on your patio! Chickens that multitask? I wish I could say something about my spoiled hens. Sigh.

Irene Kightley wrote:Chicken with chicks and some pheasant chicks they raised in front of the henhouse

Such a beautiful space! What a treat for the eyes. I'm sure the pheasant chicks are growing well with such a devoted mother.

Irene Kightley wrote: Our chickens are trained to pick ticks and lice off our angora goats after shearing. The goats love it!

And you have fiber goats. Sigh. Talented, amazingly photogenic chickens, a beautiful garden and out buildings, and fiber goats.
I was feeling slightly jealous until I realized that I could have my version of all of that, all I need do is apply myself and work for it.
Thank you so very much for sharing those beautiful pictures that have provided me with a sort-of-goal.
Maybe my journey will not involve fiber goats, but angora rabbits, or something similar, but the chickens will be around. Chickens go with everything, after all.

I was cleaning the coop and looked over and thought oh no everyone is going to escape.  I only caught this one, everyone else came running when I came back in with my camera. The gate sound equals treat's, food or an adventure in the yard.  I guess Misty was enjoying the grape leaves to much.  

What an absolutely beautiful hen! She's gorgeous!
So very blue, too. Is she one of the Lavender Suffolks I have heard about?

Best thoughts for your happy chickens!

Thanks Kirstine, she is a Sapphire gem. I named her Misty because she is the lightest one, I have 5 Sapphire gem hens, and all the others have darker edges on there back feathers.

Thanks for the lovely comments! I love my chickens.

I've been keeping chooks for a long time and worked out lots of way of using them to help me a manage the hectare of gardens around the house. A few areas of the garden are fenced, some things are covered or protected with sticks, but the chickens are allowed to go all over the place, with their fantastic colours and busy ways. You need a big garden to do this though.





We change our cockerels almost every year, so George went to a neighbour a long time ago. If any of our boys are other than perfect gentlemen, they go in the pot. This was one of my favourites:



Jen, I don't have Angoras any more, I gave away our last goats, a beautiful big male and his castrated pal last year. That was a bit sad, the end of 25 years of keeping Angoras but I'm 70 in a couple of days and it was time for me to relax a bit.