Chickens in the Backyard! Five feathery tales

Chirp Chirp! Each fluffy chick is born and placed in a brooder at the local chicken store where it will be surrounded by the dozens of other little fluff balls that look exactly like themselves. A little cloned army of cuteness.

You hear chirping from across the room … but you can’t see out of your several-story tall, steel containment and thus, it becomes white noise. Every day a blur of giant faces appears overhead staring in at you, periodically reaching down and taking one of your friends away. They don’t come back. You don’t understand. All you know is … you’re tired, you’re hungry, thirsty, and hope the giant hands from above don’t reach down and grab you. They reach in. You run for your life.

…

After weeks of both chicken enthusiasm and hesitation, Sarah and I went to the Eugene Backyard Farmer store and picked out five baby chicks. We decided to keep things interesting, and thus walked out with five different breeds that would thrive in an urban setting. How do you choose? Do you pick the ones that run away from you, declaring their early onset independence or go for the ones that seem timid, docile and ready to start their life with you? All very different and spending their lives together. A co-op of chickens you could say. We chose the following:

1 Buff Orpington
1 Barred Rock
1 Silver Laced Wyandotte
1 Cinnamon Queen sex-link (yes, that is the real name)
1 Dominique

Each chicken will lay about 1 brown egg a day. ~ 25 eggs/week.

We arrived home with our box of chicks, all respectively terrified. We placed them in their brooder, to be carefully monitored for the following weeks. Let the great chicken experiment begin.

…

BWAAACCCKKK!
Cluck cluck cluck.
Bock , bobock, bock, bock, bock, bock, begowwwwk
buck,buck,… buck… buckAHHHH!
cheep cheep cheep cheep
brrk, brroock, broock, brk-ooock

…

We have chicks living in our basement. We have CHICKENS. LIVING. IN OUR BASEMENT. We’re urban farmers. We’re really doing it! We’re reading books, reading online forums, attending community chicken classes. We even attended the tour de coop, an event that allowed us to view coops throughout Eugene’s urban setting in people’s backyards.

We’re taking each day at a time and learning as we go. Weeks have gone by with no problems. The little ones seem happy and they’re growing rapidly. They’re developing individual personalities and becoming our sweet little friends. Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.

I walked downstairs to check on them, and found a bloody chick (alive, don’t worry) in the corner with several feathers missing from its behind. BLOOD.

The establishment of the pecking order has begun. Our little friends are declaring their dominance and letting each other know who’s on top of the social ladder.

…

The days are getting warmer and the little ladies are feathered up and ready to go outside.
Ready for bellies full of wiggly worms and insects.
Their chirping has turned into clucking.
they can fly a little TOO high, and can run a little TOO quickly.
Laughing anxiously as we chase them about the yard.
Ah, the joys of chicken keeping!