Loris

I have just purchased 6 chickens and am waiting for my first eggs - I cant wait for the great yellow yolks compared to bought eggs - They are pets my husband talks to them all the time - I live in Australia and am allowed 10 as I live in a small country town. I have just joined and am not sure how to use all the links etc but will learn

Pam

Welcome Loris, have fun with your chickens, but beware, the eggs need to be at least a couple of weeks old before trying to boil them. If the eggs are too fresh they are very hard to peel. Eggs will stay fresh in the fridge for at least 6 weeks.

QuiltingNinaSue

Yes, we have chickens on our homestead now. DH built two chicken tractors; 7 in one and 15 chickens in the other. Started out with 44, but his dogs broke into the tractor and killed almost half of them at four weeks old. Now at about nine to twelve weeks old, they are big enough to free range. Dogs are penned 24/7. Black barred rock roosters are crowing. Rhode Island red rooster trys to answer him. It sounds like he is croaking like a frog.

Owllady

My husband just built me a nice chicken house and I have 13 chickens. Might have to eat one. They should be old enough to start laying soon. I just bought two fake eggs to put in their nest. We enjoy sitting on the back porch and watching them as we let them run free during the day and close them at night to keep varmints from getting them. They are pets.

lorli

We have bantams and a few guinea hens and yes, they are pets but only one has a name, Petula. She is a white cochin bantam and I think she looks like a chicken in a childrens' story. We have a few cockerels, including one very mean one who happens to be Petula's son. He chases people, especially me! My legs are always all scarred and bruised in the summer because he attacks me and once he tore my ear open (I was bent over kissing my favorite lamb, a former bottle baby and house resident) goodnight.

Everyone I know says that they would put that mean chicken into a pot, but my DH likes him and refuses to kill him. I think he likes to I cooked him, I would probably choke on the meat!

All in all, they are a lot of fun and much more intelligent than people think.

tryitall

Yes, we have chickens. Actually, our GD has chickens, which are "housed" at NeeNee and Pawpaw's. They have names and are definitley pets. And we do have the eggs to counter balance the feed, ect. (HA)

CountryStitching

No, thank goodness ;)

Jeri6

Yes we have chicken pets. Our boss rooster is named Pecker McPecker. He is a great gentle leader. The chickens are all so tame you can carry them around and they eat out of your hand. And we get eggs! Our other rooster is Elvis he loves the ladies. We keep them in a pen. There are other things out there that will eat them if we didn't.

Lynnc

I live in a subdivision so we can't have chickens but about 1/2 mile away there is a chicken farmer. Early in the morning we wake up to a faint sound of roosters and chickens. Just far enough to enjoy but not close enough to bug us.
My parents were city farmer. We had 1/4 acre and had chickens and ducks.
We like to travel to often to raise chickens, ducks or rabbits. It is hard enough to find cat and dog sitters.

littlelemon

We have 14 hens currently, over the years we have had more and less. They aren't really our "pets", but there is one hen that I dote over- she is my oldest one at 6 years. She is the last one to start laying in the spring and the first one to molt and stop laying in the fall, but I am attached to her and I will keep her until she dies a natural death.

I like to keep different breeds, and if I am unhappy with a breed I will only keep those birds for about 2 years and then I replace them with a different breed. We have hatched out several batches of chicks in our incubator and it is a lot of fun.

I have been designing a chicken quilt in the back of my mind lately. I would like to do an applique block of each breed of chicken that I have kept (I would design the blocks myself to resemble each breed), and then border with Ohio stars (I live in OH). I don't know if this quilt will ever come to fruition, but it is fun to think about!

Amy J.