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My name is Gemma and I host a podcast about chickens, bees, and general homesteading topics. With every episode, I will try to share a corresponding blog post. The following is not an exact transcript (although that is something I'm working on) but does have some additional info and accompanying images. It's a good resource if you missed something in the episode, or if you prefer to read than listen! Thanks for being here. :)
You can find my first episode over on Podbean (click for link!)
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I’d known for a while that I wanted to get a small flock of chickens. I’d spent countless hours pouring over books about their care, and had even planned out which breeds I’d bring home, what colour eggs they’d lay, how old they would be (chicks or well started pullets?), and everything in between! I’d have their coop all set up; carefully designed for the exact number of chickens I’d purchase, and their run would be interesting and predator proof. It would all be ready long in advance of any actual chickens coming home.
But that’s not how it played out. Instead, I’d find myself in a crash course of chicken keeping after finding a hen in the grocery store parking lot in downtown Akron. Yes, a hen in a parking lot.
I was loading my car when I saw it; a drab brown thing at the base of a tree. Stopping to get a proper look, I realised it was a chicken. Glancing around at the few homes nearby, I realised none had the space for a garden, and therefore certainly no space for even a tiny flock. Creeping closer, I took a good look at this out of place bird. It looked a bit rough, kind of bedraggled, and there was something off about its beak, but it had a big, showy red comb. Must be a rooster, I surmised, and immediately named him Bob.
Bob did not want to be caught. In fact, Bob led me in a merry chase around a tree until I was quite dizzy! It was still early morning, not a lot of people around thank goodness, but a car still pulled up to watch me chase this little rooster around a tree like a complete pillock! I felt like I was in a Benny Hill sketch!
I regrouped. Clearly, I was not fast enough to catch this chicken but damn if I wasn’t smarter than a freakin’ bird! So I grabbed some leaves (we were deep into Autumn, heading to winter), crumbled them up, and pretended they were food. Bob was intrigued. It took awhile but he finally let his guard down enough for me to snatch him up. Success!!
Now what?? I had a chicken in the middle of downtown and no clue what to do with him. Not in the habit of carrying animal traps around with me, all I had were some towels and reusable shopping bags. Sorry, Bob, you’re going in the bag! I wrapped the little thing up in my softest towel (he felt so light in my arms; I was surprised) and carefully lowered him into a cloth bag, loosely tying the handles so that he couldn’t jump out but wasn’t tightly held.
Pulling out my cell, I called my county’s animal control. They referred me to the city’s AC, who told me they didn’t take farm animals. Trusty Google told me there was a farm sanctuary about 45 minutes away. I called them, left a message, and decided that Bob would just have to stay with me until I found him a safe place to land. So I drove home with a chicken in the back seat. Bob made soft little coos on the way home, and I felt my heart softening. Damned if I wasn’t in love with Bob by the time we pulled into my driveway.
Leaving the groceries, I rushed to set up a temporary pen. Outside of the fence, I chose an area that received a good amount of sun, and put up my x-pen. We have a lot of hawks so I used some spare garden netting to cover the pen. All I had was bird seed so I put a bowl of that down with fresh water, and then Bob was in his new home. While he ate the grass and dug in the dirt, I saw to the groceries, sent a bewildered text to my husband, and then grabbed all my chicken books.
While I was pouring over chicken care guides, someone from the farm sanctuary called me back. She apologetically let me know that they had just rescued over 100 cock fighting roosters and had no space for another. She offered to look at some photos of my new friend to let me know what breed I had. I happily sent off some pics. The first text read simply: “That is a hen, not a rooster. You don’t have a Bob, you have a Bobette!”
I couldn’t believe my mistake but was greatly relieved. Roosters are noisy and can make for very unhappy neighbours but a hen would be much easier to keep. And didn’t I always want a few hens? It turns out that Bobette was an ISA brown, a production breed, who had likely fallen off the back of a truck on a way to being ‘processed’ (killed for dog food or stew meat). Her beak looked off to me because the top of it had been cut off. This is standard practice in factory farming where the confined, close quarters cause chickens to peck each other. As a result of her missing top beak, she couldn’t pick up food as easily so I’d need to feed her crumble instead of pellets. She was also mid-moult, which is why she looked scruffy and why she was on her way to being processed. When chickens moult, they stop laying eggs as creating new feathers requires a great deal of protein. Commercial chicken operations will usually cull hens when they start their first moult, as it is cheaper to replace them than wait for them to start laying again.
I’d posted on Facebook earlier as I’d known my friends would get a kick out of me managing to find a hen downtown. Everyone told me to keep her. I didn’t think I could get everything together in time, even though I was already attached to her. A friend of mine ended up putting me in touch with someone who offered to foster Bobette for me while I got a coop built. And so off she went! I have never been so grateful, and I am still friends with this lady today.
It took me longer than I wanted but finally I had a small coop and run that I had bought from a local carpenter. It would fit no more than 4 hens and it was not what I had originally had in mind but it would work for now. The weather turned right after it was delivered, and I worked in the snow, my fingers numb, to predator proof that coop. I couldn’t wear gloves while working with the wire netting and so didn’t realise I’d sliced up my hands until I came inside and the blood flow returned. I wore a lot of bandaids that week!
But a single hen can’t survive a winter so I posted a wanted ad: “2-3 hens wanted as companions for an ex-battery hen. Don’t need to be laying but do need to be gentle.”
I was inundated with locals who had old hens that needed a soft spot to land. I drove an hour out for one elderly girl, Agatha, who was between 7 and 8 years old. A bald eagle flew over us on our way home, and I took that as a good omen. Next came Meatbutt and Peckington (named by a 4 year old boy; I didn’t have the heart to rename them) from someone the next town over. They were also ISA browns and young enough to still be laying. I put these 3 girls to bed in their new coop during a snowstorm and hoped for the best.
Two days later, Peckington was found dead in the nest box and I ended up performing a necropsy in the garage. She had an infection of the reproductive tract that had led to a tumour like growth that had finally ruptured overnight. It had been growing since long before I brought her home. I was crushed but determined not to give up.
10 days later, Bobette came home and I started the slow process of introducing her to the new girls. It was especially hard in the bad weather (do NOT get chickens in winter!) but I made it work. At night, Bobette went into a cat carrier that I then put in the coop with the others so they could smell her and share warmth. During the day, I had her in the x-pen connected to their run so they could see each other but not be able to chase or peck. It wasn’t long before she was an accepted member of the flock.
Not long after, I was making my second run of the day to the coop to make sure the water hadn’t frozen, and I watched my 3 girls digging around in the snow. Agatha watched me with suspicion, Meatbutt yelled out her demands for more food, and Bobette ran straight to me, looking for food, and tolerating my affections. I finally had my flock. It wasn’t anything like I expected but it was mine.
Within a year, I’d finally have my big beautiful coop with a red roof. Sadly, Bobette would not live to see it. I lost her to a reproductive disorder that caused her to become egg bound and prolapsed. I loved that sweet hen so much that I spent an obscene amount of money on surgery for her, which actually went very well. Sadly, her tiny body couldn’t take all the stress and she passed away in her sleep the day after surgery. I was devastated.
Not long after she passed, I had my new large run predator proofed and ready for a flock so I bought 8 mixed breed chickens from a woman a town over. They were used to free roaming as part of a flock of over 100 birds and so were quite wary of me and very fierce with each other. Meatbutt, who had been the undisputed queen of her last little flock, had the stuffing beaten out of her and ended up quite low on the pecking order for a while. Agatha was never interested in being in charge and didn’t even put up a fuss; she just became the lowest ranking chicken without complaint.
Now, Agatha is actually the bemused matriarch of a flock of 3. Early this year, I was contacted by a friend about 2 chickens at Cleveland animal control. They’d been found wandering the streets. As fate would have it, I’d just moved Agatha out into the small coop to live alone as she had become unsteady with old age and the younger hens were absolutely vicious to her. She needed to be isolated for her safety but she also needed friends. I was in the process of trying to find a few docile bantam hens for her when I got this email from my friend so, like the sucker I am, I drove to Cleveland to collect the hens. Like Bobette, they were clearly from a factory with cut beaks and flight feathers, and those crazy showy combs! They were also encrusted in food and their own filth. They stunk so bad that I could smell them even with all the windows down in my car, and I actually pulled over and moved them into the open boot to get more distance from the stench.
Once home, both got a bath, which they hated, and then a careful introduction to Agatha. Ideally, I would quarantine them but I didn’t have a spare coop and couldn’t risk putting Agatha back with the younger girls so I went ahead and risked it. Intros went well and they quickly became a weird little flock. And I do mean weird. Agatha has arthritis basically everywhere, which gives her an unsteady gait, so she sort of waddles and staggers her way around. Meanwhile, the rescued girls are the dumbest chickens I have ever encountered! They seem totally confused by everything and have zero problem solving skills. Names I’ve considered for them include ‘herp and derp’ and ‘dumb and dumber’. I do love them, though, and they seem like a fitting legacy for Bobette. She taught me to have a special soft spot for the hens who need that little extra care.
And these girls do need the extra care. Agatha gets a pain medication every day, which is a small tablet I crush up, mix with yoghurt, and syringe feed her as she learned to pick out the pill! She also can’t groom herself like she used to because of the arthritis in her spine so she tends to get overrun with poultry lice. I have to dust her with DE every week, and I treat the factory girls too since their cut beaks make it hard for them to pick the lice off like a healthy bird will do. Poultry lice on their own are pretty normal and a healthy chicken will keep them from becoming an infestation. I don’t have issues with lice in my big flock because they’re all relatively young and healthy. But my special needs girls need that extra care and treatment. It can be a hassle, I won’t lie, but I think it’s worth it.
So that’s a quick run down of how I ended up with my hens! Before I go, I’d like to name a few books on chicken care that I found particularly invaluable or enjoyable. For keeping and care information, I really like ‘Keeping Chickens with Ashley English’, ‘Raising Chickens for Dummies’ by Willis and Ludlow, and ‘The Chicken Health Handbook’ by Gail Damerow, which is an absolutely invaluable piece of literature on every possible chicken ailment, and the number 1 book I would recommend to anyone who keeps chickens. A few books that I recommend for the sheer love of chickens are ‘Free range chicken gardens’ by Jessi Bloom, which is a great guide for gardening for and with chickens; ‘How to speak Chicken’ by Melissa Caughey, a delightful guide to social interaction amongst a flock; and ‘Once Upon a Flock’ by Lauren Scheuer, which is a lovely little book, complete with author illustrations, detailing her personal journey with chicken keeping. This is my favourite ‘pure enjoyment’ chicken book, and I highly recommend tracking it down if you can.
Hahaha I don't think you're a sucker LOL - just a crazy chicken lady ;-)