House Chicken?

This story begins with a common misconception. It is easy to understand why people would believe that we spend a lot of our time at home. We have found jobs that allow us to work from home and we homeschool. However, there are seasons in life where we struggle for time at home to do the work required, let alone to enjoy any relaxing time just living at home. The last several weeks have been one of those busy seasons for us. Between Farmers Markets, craft shows, homeschool co-op, field trips, soccer practices, soccer games, delivering orders, picking up supplies, etc., we are finding it difficult to maintain the routines necessary for our farm. We had to make adjustments. 

We started by sitting down to evaluate how our time was being spent and what redundances could be removed. We have three different flocks of chickens on our farm. This was intentionally set up in this manner for various reasons but now it was taking too much time and we needed to consolidate. 

Our first flock is our laying hens. They are a mixture of varieties. We have their mobile coop and pens set up in conjunction with our sheep. This allows us to utilize the same solar charger and expand the grazing areas when the fences are being shared. We rotate the ground that these chickens are on regularly as they follow the grazing pattern of the sheep. 

Our second flock are a Barred Rock breed that we purchased as chicks in March 2023. We set them up as an experiment to utilize their chicken behavior to speed up the process of making our own compost. Check out this post for details: Mobile Chicken Tractor and Compost – Growing Roots Farm (thegrowingrootsfarm.com)

The chickens did a great job for their portion of the work. We, humans however, became lazy and didn't flip the piles as often as needed. After the spring garden was planted, we simply let the compost piles go. This would have worked except that without a good structure, the chickens spread the contents all over the ground. We rotated these chickens to new ground every week. In addition, these chickens were starting to lay their first eggs. We now had to collect eggs from two different locations on the farm every day. It made sense to combine the flocks. By combining the two flocks, we could eliminate one weekly rotation, one daily feeding and decrease the time that it took to collect eggs. 

Overall, the introduction of the two flocks went smoothly.

The hens reestablished a new pecking order.

The roosters discovered their roles when they learned that there was plenty of land and ladies for them both to be happy.

 This was a successful change!

Next, we decided to address the issue of the third flock. This flock of chickens were purchased as newly hatched chicks in August. They were all supposed to be Americauna breed, but I think we ended up with one a bit different. I will talk more about her later. We purchased these chicks because we discovered that our current chickens weren't able to keep up with the needs of our family and our customers. We were occasionally running short of eggs. We could have purchased laying hens, but it wasn't a dire situation and I feel that it is easier to integrate the chickens into our routines when we get them as chicks. These chicks should start laying in the spring. 

My favorite time of year to obtain baby chicks is in August. They require much less intervention from us to be healthy and happy. We don't have to maintain the heat lamp very long and they can be exposed to the outside world much earlier. We set them up in a homemade brooder. We roll them outdoors for fresh air during the day and move them indoors at night. These chicks had all obtained their feathers and were of good size. Since the introduction of the first and second flocks went so well, we decided to move these chickens in with the others. The idea would be to have all of our chickens in one location. 

The integration went well until the chicks discovered that they could fit through the bottom openings of the fence. The feathers provided them just enough insulation that they didn't receive a shock. They discovered new ground to scratch that didn't include larger chickens for competition. We played a fun, family game of herd the chickens. 

Since chickens are not the smartest animals on the farm, they continued to escape the fencing. They were relishing their free-range life. They enjoyed this lifestyle until the dogs discovered that they were escaping. Fortunately, for the chicks, their small size makes the effort to eat this nugget sized treat too much work for the dogs. The dogs simply found this to be a fun adventure in chasing, catching and bringing the chick to the house. 

Now, the new family-fun game was called "rescue-the-chick and return it to the pen".  This occurred a few times. Eventually, these chicks have developed a system of staying close to the fence and running for safety when the dogs appear on the scene. 

One especially slow learner has been named Lucky. She was the chick that looks a bit different than the rest. I think she was mislabeled from the hatchery. She is a bit smaller than the other chickens and tends to escape the pen the most often. She has traveled by dog-chauffer to the house several times. The last time this happened, she appeared on the verge of death. 

We were late for co-op, so we set up a tote with a blanket, water, food and a heat lamp. I didn't have high hopes that she would recover. We left to attend our classes. When we returned, Lucky had made an amazing recovery and seemed to enjoy her new abode. She worked hard to endear herself enough to be upgraded to a house-chicken. I think she truly believes that living with the other chickens is beneath her and that she belongs in the house with the humans. 

I discussed this idea with the hubby. He has been working hard not to automatically say no to my ideas (a wife's lengthy hospital stay will soften a man's resolve to deny even the craziest of ideas). Instead of saying no, he made one condition. He stated that if the Master Crocheter would agree to hand-crochet a custom chicken vest for this chicken, she can find a new residence in our house. He knew that the Master Crocheter would never go for this idea. While she is very talented, she refuses to take custom orders and wants to enjoy the process of the craft and not turn it into a business. Her desire to remain focused on the craft is the reason that I handle the business side of selling her creations. I have suggested the idea of chicken vests in the past and she has ignored the request. Maybe she would reconsider when the comfort of one spoiled chicken was on the line?

So far, all I have gotten as a response is LOL. 

Now, what do you think?

Should the Master Crocheter attempt this new design pattern?

Should the hubby agree to allow the family to have a house-chicken?

Or should this chicken be reminded that she is a chicken (even if she does have funny looking feathers on her head) and resign to living her best life outdoors? 

Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.