Mills Family

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Chickens here, there and everywhere!

13/06/09 15:52 Filed in: chickens | nature | Anna
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When we lived in Kentucky we had many chickens. I don’t remember them very much since I was very little. When we moved to Tennessee we had to give them up because we lived in a subdivision. My mom missed them a lot. Five years passed and my mom really wanted chickens again. So we ordered chicks in the mail. When they arrived they came all squashed. About 10 survived. But they started to die one by one until only 4 were left, 3 white ones and 1 black and white one. The white chickens’ names were Ella, Star, and an unnamed one. The black and white one was Duke. They grew and grew. By the time we ordered more, they had feathers on their wings. When the new chicks came (See the video here) there were 25 in all. We gave some to our neighbors (who took one of my favorites) and some to my mom’s friend. We kept 3 of them. The black one with brown specks was Thorn. The penny colored one was , of course, Penny. And the rusty colored one with black specks was Basil. She was my favorite.
We kept them in my dad’s workshop in a big box. We had to change their newspaper 2 times a day, and feed and water them. Some times the would poop in their water so I had to rinse out the water bowl. 3 or 4 weeks passed, doing the same routine every day. Then we turned them out into their coop for the first time. They loved the hot sun and would lay on their sides to soak it all up. At the end of the day we would put them back in their box. By now they were getting to big for it. We did this for about 5 days. Then the day came when they slept in the coop overnight. They were fine the next day. They stayed in it for about a week and then we let them roam around outside their coop. They didn’t go far. These 7 chicks were too young to leave their new home. Although they were pretty big, they still drank out of a water bowl. So the time came when I had to teach them to drink out of the coop’s waterer. It looks like a hamster waterer. It took about 3 hours for them to get it. I had taught only Ella and the unnamed one. But when the others saw them drinking out of it, they caught on.
Then one day we got a phone call from Mom’s friend saying she lost some of her chickens to her dogs and cat. So we had to give up the two youngest white ones-Star and the unnamed one. The others were young so they quickly forgot them. Months passed and we had a great time taking care of them. It was funny when you go and let them out in the morning because they are always waiting for you. Then they will go to the mulch and roll in it to get out pesky bugs. They also would run over to our hill and find their favorite food: wild strawberries.
One day, early in the morning, my mom woke up to the sound of....crowing! She went down to the coop and saw that Duke the hen was actually a rooster! Mom called up her chicken friend and told her the story and she happily took him to her place where he would live the rest of his life. He soon became the head of that place. But when we gave her the rooster, she gave us a hen in exchange. Remember our birds were full grown chickens. And guess who we got? Star! But the other chickens didn’t remember her and Ella (the head hen now) was pecking her neck and being mean. So we got a dog cage from our neighbor and put it beside the coop for Star to sleep in. For 4 days they got to know each other well and on the fifth day they were very nice to her and accepted her into the group. Now we have a group of 5 chickens all getting along and loving every minute of their life. They are happy little chickens. We renamed Thorn and Star. Thorn is now Teddy, and Star is now Iceclaw. We love them!