Believe it or not, I actually have people who e-mail me about the chickens. For those who are interested, here's the latest coop news.
The White Hen finally gave up on her empty nest and rejoined the real world. Citronella, the hen who sat on eggs for five weeks but hatched no chicks, has redirected her mothering instincts toward Petronella's four chicks. One night I was outside checking on something and happened to shine my flashlight onto the chicken roost. There was Petronella sitting by herself. Next to her, Citronella had her wings spread over the four baby chicks, their yellow heads peeking out under Citronella's feathers.
I suppose that Petronella's newfound freedom was bound to change her behavior. She's become quite the escape artist, finding all sorts of ways to get out of the chicken pen and scratch around in the yard. She's even started laying eggs in one of the flower beds. Usually we manage to get her back into the pen at night, but a couple of times she eluded us and flew high up on the roof of the chicken pen to roost.
The chicken house population keeps growing. We've now been given two red hens as thank you gifts. Our Zambian friends keep telling us that we are REAL chicken farmers. The adventures in raising chickens continue. . .
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We had chickens for a couple of years. It sounds to me that you'll get to enjoy the eggs from them now. But if you keep getting new ones and let the babies grow - you'll get to learn the "pleasures" of killing and plucking them.
I learned that it was better in a lot of ways to eat them the next day - after the cleaning and plucking.
However, naming them . . . gives your food an identity! LOL.
But the best Thanksgiving turkey we ever had was one we raised. It had the sweetest flavor and was juicier than the store bought ones.
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