Hey CT,  I got my own chicken stories--many of them, but you folks ain't
got time to hear 'em all.  Started when I was about 5 and Dad decided to
raise hens to ship eggs.  Then when I was about 7 Grandad decided I needed
to have some hens to sell eggs to teach me responsibility and thrift.

As an adult I have had about every type of bird known to man, except swans
and peafowl, both of which I would love to have.  At one time I had 3-4
incubators going at a time with various fowl.  For a few years we incubated
quail for a man who kept them to train hunting dogs.  Man can those things
RUN and FLY--the minute they hatch out.  Once they got out of the pen on
our brown carpet.  The only way we could get them was to wait quietly until
they called to each other then scoop them up with a fish net.

We have had turkeys for about 20 years now.  This year I decided to send
away for turkeys since the ones we could get locally grew too large--last
year we had 5 toms weigh over 40 lbs.  Ordered the min of 15, only got 13,
7 died in first couple of days leaving 6 birds.  Hubby kept saying "that
white one is a chicken."  I told him, "no, it's a turkey."  Guess what?  We
now have one hen.  Well, I like fresh eggs, guess we're back in the chicken
business.  I'll not order from that hatchery again.

At the school where we work one of the students wanted to have chickens so
his Dad donated a hen house and a few birds.  Turned out some of them were
roosters and faculty complained so I had to find homes for said roosters.
Science teacher decides incubating eggs would be a cool lesson--result,
more chickens.  Got rid of some, kept some, more roosters.  At this point
there are 3 hens in the chicken house at school.  Some got eaten by wild
varmints, some just died of old age and everybody is hopeful the rest will
follow shortly.  A boarding school is not the place for hens.

Any body else got some good chicken stories?  Ruth


At 9:44 PM -0700 7/13/03, C T Brown wrote:
Chickens.We had three eggs laid on us by grandma. Came with small plastic
incubator. These four items went with Willa to the Rudolf Steiner School.
The wonders of birth and so on. Made a number of trips to school at night
and weekends. " We have to check, tonight is the night " One egg finally
pops weeks later. Others are duds. Sigrid, handworks and music teacher,
spotted dancing at Bat Mitzvah with glow stick under blouse, says " One
chick will die alone. I'll take it home to stay safely with my new chicks. "
This isn't about chickens, it's about neighbors. Sigrids neighbors complain
about chickens. We get Peepers back, along with all Sigrids chickens.
Peepers is white and has some strange chicken malady causing his feet to be
rubbery. One of the new chickens is a gold brown with a dislocated beak.
Craig Moffit brings 5 more chickens to stay 2 weeks, one bee lines into the
woods and is never seen again. We now have 9 chickens. I build a temporary
coop with leftovers, wire and tarp. Peepers is a rooster. David, next door,
he hopes we don't have a rooster. Now I know David (not Dave please) is a
good guy because his wife is a therapist. I also know they have no bad
deamons because of the feng shu work they did when they boarded up their
front door and started using the rear door through the back bedroom and 30
feet of 5 foot deep snow. So they called the police the first time the
chickens went 2 feet into their yard. Now I'm fairly familiar with Chief
Reena, my wife having been one of her policewomen. Almost everyone knows the
Chief is afraid of chickens and that the station has it's own chicken
problem. The neighbors chickens sit and shit on the cruiser. Jen used to
chase them off so the chief could go and track criminals, but she doesn't
work there anymore as she didn't like ignoring the crimes of the rich. So
chief never showed, maybe she couldn't get the chickens off the cruiser.
Just after I finish running 400 feet of chicken wire our other neighbors
discover they love chickens and start eating one a night. The horses step
on a few. As of today , no chickens. We do have a new colt, a pinto with
white butt. I wanted to name him snowy bottom, but no one has any class
around here.
 nobody here but us chickens
burpsures

--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Dummerston, VT

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>