Spending time with chickens

My housemate and I spoke of getting laying chickens before we even made it to Texas. What could be better, we thought, then collecting fresh eggs from chickens that really eat bugs and turn our vegetable scraps into a perfect protein?!

Three weeks ago I found a posting on craigslist for two laying hens, about a year old. We took off one day to take a look at them, boxes filled with a little hay and bird handling gloves - just in case. The chickens lived in a four by four foot raised chicken coop and were never permitted to run around in the yard. They ate 100% feed.

These details were not ideal, but of course I had fallen in love the moment we had seen them, so there was no going back.

It took the lady over an hour to coax the chickens to the door of the cage and rustle them into the cardboard boxes. Then we drove them home and let them go in their new huge chicken coop. They pecked around, made some odd noises, and started pooping around the coop. Doing chicken things I guess.

These being my first chickens, I really didn't know what to do with them, but we got some advice from chicken-owning-neighbors that we should keep them in the coop for two weeks, then when we let them out they will always come back to roost at night. It seemed reasonable so that is what we did.

This last Saturday was the two weeks mark and I let Ginger and Bertha out to peck around the property! Good news - the dog did not eat them.

They give us an egg or two a day, plenty for our house of

three to have eggs at breakfast when we like. The egg yolks stand tall and proud in the egg pan, enticing us with their deep orange color. The egg white has a well defined inner circle and outer circle, just like a healthy egg should. We thank our chickens for their gifts with frequent visits with snacks and cooing words of appreciation. I love visiting them every morning with a "Hello ladies!"

Next time I will definitely raise the lil buggers from chicks to get the whole experience and to control their food from the beginning, but getting them a little older fits my lifestyle at the moment and I am happy to have done it this way.

From a nutrition view, the eggs are fabulous. But the chickens give us something else too, a relaxed companionship. Many times now I have closed myself in with the chickens and sat on the hay stack to just watch them. The simplicity of their lives slows me down and comforts me. They are gentle little creatures.