Chicken & Waffles: An Update on The Ladies

From the moment the tiny chicks arrived at our home an adventure began. Our girls have loved caring for their chickens and watching them grow. It started easy enough; feed, water, clean, repeat. We have watched them grow from little puff balls into beautiful, full grown chickens with full combs and waddles. When The Ladies hear the back door open they come running and they follow us all round the back yard. The girls refer to themselves as "chicken mamas" and they take great pride in their chickens.

Cinnamon Queen

Rhode Island White

Barred Rock

We are starting to see personalities come out that vary from chicken to chicken, but more noticeably from breed to breed. The Rhode Island Whites are more dominate than the others and seem a little more aggressive. The Cinnamon Queens are almost exact opposite. They stick together and will be the last to approach food or people and are by far the most timid when it comes to being touched by people. They have made me run around like a crazy person just because they are so afraid of people approaching them. Then we have the Barred Rock. My lap chicken is a Barred Rock. They will approach people without fear and like to sit by us when we are outside, they eat from our hands and are pretty tolerable of being held. I think one may be the highest in the pecking order even though as a whole they are less aggressive than the Rhode Island Whites. Not matter the breed, when the sense danger the whole flock run in this hilarious, waddling mob to the coop or under the porch.

Since The Ladies started laying the girls have added to their list of chores the task of collecting eggs. It has been quite gratifying to carry in eggs after filling feeders and water and surprisingly few eggs have been broken! We still have to go in search of the egg one of our Cinnamon Queens lays since she still refuses to lay in the nesting boxes (or even the coop for that matter!) but that has become part of the fun for the egg collectors. We are getting about a dozen eggs a day and are starting to sell our fresh eggs to family and friends.

A highlight to the day is bringing The Ladies treats. They are particularly fond of grapes and bread and they will eat right out of your hand. Occasionally they really get spoiled and get hot oatmeal or a waffle left over from breakfast.  I figure it can't be too bad to spoil them, they are feeding us after all.

Disclaimer: I do not typically feed my chickens off plates but when I brought out the waffle I found it amusing that it was chickens and a waffle because chicken and waffles! And I've been watching too much food network...

Raising our flock hasn't been without drama though. I have had to spend more time than I would have liked chasing our free range chickens about to get them put in at night if we are leaving and won't be able to close them in at sundown. I have been sweat soaked and winded from the process with an audience of amused neighbors, not pretty. I have also shed a tear or two over lost tomatoes because those dirty, rotten chickens finally got brave enough to venture that far out into the yard. If you were around my house about 2 pm any given day in the month of August you probably heard me yelling. "Bad chicken! Bad, bad chicken!" as I barreled out the back door to rescue tomatoes. We also had an incident with a neighbors dog where we actually lost one of our chickens. He came into our yard and snatched one and we followed the trail of feathers back into his yard where we found him chewing on our chicken. It was very sad and I cried angry tears over the disrespect of our neighbors and their carelessness with their pets. The girls cried over not getting to see the dead chicken. (When you're 2 and 4 you have no understanding of such things) We will see how we all really do when it comes time to process a couple of our chickens.

Even with the trouble they cause from time to time, we are really pleased with they way things are going and they seem to be pretty happy to spend their days roaming the yard and begging for treats!