My Little Roos

          I've always been a little bit jealous when I hear other chicken owners refer to their flock as "my girls." What a perfect term! It just rolls off your tongue...
          Unfortunately, I happened to be blessed with five roosters in the bunch. Call them chauvinistic or what you will, but my boys would be deeply offended if I ever referred to them as girls.
         Just kidding, I'm not  that eccentric... At least not yet. Though who knows, by the time I'm ninety I may be having full fledged conversations with them. Right now, I hereby grant myself permission that when I reach that age I'm allowed to have as many conversations with them as I want. Hell, I'll talk politics with them!
             (below) One of my roosters: Sampson. I think he might be a democrat...I mean..umm..a Silver Laced Wyandotte!

The Poultry Congress a Success!

         This past Saturday should be deemed a holiday for chicken and all poultry lovers alike. The Northeast Poultry Congress was held at the Big E in West Springfield Mass. That meant, of course, that I was there in a heartbeat!

        Chicken lovers from all over came to show or buy birds. Even Jan Brett, the illustrator of popular childrens books, was there!
        The echoing stadium was lined up with cage after cage of talking birds. Over a thousand different birds were showed. You can imagine how many roosters crowed every second!  Each one competed with the cockerel in the cage next to him for volume! Their attempts at manliness were as cute as a little roo can get...
        A  separate room was devoted for birds being sold. My fellow chicken lovers came along: my dear friend Rebekah and my boyfriend Steve. Rebekah drove home from the congress with a little Cochin rooster. The farmer that sold her the bird made a point to mention what a shame it would be to cull the rooster if he wasn't sold. That comment was all it took for her, the softy that she is, to buy the little roo. We later joked that he could sense she was a Subaru driving vegan. But who knows? I bet the old time farmers do have a sixth sense for Subaru drivers!
     The farmer that sold Rebekah the roosters hatched his chickens out  himself. It goes to show that if your interested in hatching out your own chickens, you'll likely end up with  a ton of roosters. If you use that method, know what you're getting yourself into! Very few people are interested in buying roosters.
     I, on the other hand, came home with my sweet little Old English Wheaten Game Bantam.

              ^^^^^  (Rebekah and I with our new lil chicks!)

Steve and  I made sure it was a little hen for our tiny apartment. Our neighbors would wonder if they heard a rooster crowing every morning.
         For more information about going to the Poultry Congress go to (http://poultrycongress.com)....It's worth it!

No Land for Chickens? No Worries!

  There are a lot of chicken lovers out there that don't have the place to keep chickens. I am definitely one of them. The backyard to my one bedroom apartment is a parking lot. But recently I found the answer for chicken lovers in my situation.
     Buy a bantam! Many of these miniature chickens are about the size of pigeons. They can be kept at home just as a parrot would be kept. I bought my "lil girl" yesterday and fittingly I have deemed her "Pidgy." She is a Wheaten Old English Game bantam. All it takes is a 2' x 1' cage, a few shavings and BAM, you have your own personal chicken coop! Each egg laid from this small chicken is about half the size of a normal egg. That means every other day you can enjoy a farm fresh egg breakfast! In my case I suppose it would be "apartment fresh" wouldn't it?

     My little Pidgy has already taken to her surroundings very well. We keep her in her crate when we can't watch her. Otherwise she is "free range," so to speak. She has already claimed the top of the TV as her favorite place to sit. Last night my boyfriend Steve and I watched a whole movie with Pidge roosting  on top of the TV, happy as can be!
      Old English Game bantams are only some of the many bantam breeds to choose from. You can find many bantam varieties that are the same as the full sized varieties. Beware, not all bantams are as small as Pidge. Make sure you know exactly how "mini" they are. Some, like the Buff Silkie Bantam, are quite large and I wouldn't recommend them as house pets. Others, like the Serama, are the smallest of all bantams.
   Good Luck!

My Story

     "What's your favorite animal," the girl asked me on the first day of  freshman orientation.
      She and I were a part of a group of students sitting on the perfectly mowed grass of the perfectly green campus lawn.    I sighed...The girl with the neon blond hair and flashing eyes wasn't going to find many similarities with my answer. But this was after all, just a part of another silly "getting to know one another exercise."

     As she handed me the ball, my reply was..of course...chickens..
   
  My name is Laura and a few years have gone by since then.  I'm still  a poor college student living in a modest apartment...but I spend as much time as I can tending to my "babies" on my parents  farm .

      Throughout this blog I'm hoping to share some of the things I've learned with some fellow chicken lovers out there. If you like learning  about chickens or just enjoy a cute short story about their antics, then I think you'll enjoy this.
    I'm new with blogs so I hope you like it!