Usually when I am spotted outside by our sweet ladies, there is joyous running to the fence like this photo below. We've had a rogue raccoon recently who wiped out our neighbor's entire chicken flock, not to mention the odd domestic dog who might happen to travel through our land, which, thankfully, doesn't happen very often as a domestic dog is the chicken's biggest predator, as is a raccoon, opossum, weasel.... well, let's just say the chicken is at the bottom of the food chain.
So imagine my concern when I checked on the chickens not once, but three times, after being gone most of the day yesterday, to see this unmoving 'dogpile' of 6-7 chickens at the fence in the photo below. Should
the word 'dogpile' need to be changed to 'chickenpile'?! Also, an odd, not-so-great-fact of chickens is when one is
killed, the others sometimes peck on her and that is what also had me worried. But after a fourth trip
back to the house to grab some bread to throw out, all is back to normal
with joyous ladies running to the fence. I was relieved.
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| There are 6-7 chickens piled on top of each other here. |
We lost nary a one of our sweet ladies to the rogue raccoon. As soon as we saw odd predator activity about a month ago, live traps were set nightly as the coop was shored up immediately to eventually be completely rebuilt. (I will do an update on that hopefully soon.) Though each trap was 'sprung', no varmint was ever captured and we hope the raccoon found dead on the side of a nearby road was the culprit as we've not seen nocturnal predator activity since then. Felt sorry for our neighbor losing their entire flock, as this was their first foray into chickens due to liking ours so much. Sometimes they'll bring their little 2 year old girl up to pet our chickens when they know we're out on the grounds. As strong country folk, they've re-purchased a handful of baby chicks from the local feed 'n seed to try again.
Seems we've become a sort of 'Chicken Ambassador' as our neighbor and one of Tom's co-workers are trying their hand at chickens this year for the first time. Living in the country, with no zoning against raising chickens to worry about, I'm glad to see the growth of 'backyard flocks' with these families with youngsters. We have no youngsters anymore, but I treasure my memories of 4-H days with my own two girls.
SC's 4-H program educated us on the proper chicken care and training. Though I was the 4-H Leader, I learned right along with my girls as I knew nothing about chickens or anything poultry at the time. By the way, the only reason I was the 4-H Leader, was because there was no one else in our area; so, if the girls were to be in 4-H, I needed to be the Leader.... and I am so glad for that opportunity, though it was an awful lot of work.
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a beaming Carolina Girl holding Freaky at a fair in 2001.
Freaky lived to be over 10 years old |
Yes, I did say 'training' as chickens are highly intelligent and very trainable. Both my girls won ribbons at the county fairs for the training of their hen(s). Each hen had to walk from one end of the table to the other without flying away, nor anything touching them, then stand still all while a judge was looking on. In the photo below, Carolina Girl has her little wooden guiding stick, but it is not and could not touch the chicken. Only to be used as a guide for the chicken.
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| Carolina Girl and her award winning chicken 'Freaky' concentrating hard for a 4-H show in 2001 |
Then each child had to answer questions from the judge on proper chicken care and show the judge proper chicken 'handling'.
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Carolina Girl answering the judge's questions while the judge inspects the condition of her chicken
@2001 at the Anderson County Fair |
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Around this same time I was asked to speak at different groups of prospective backyard flock owners in the greater Greenville, SC area to encourage more backyard flocks. One of the highlights of my memory is the year when First Presbyterian, our largest Presbyterian congregation in Greenville at the time, chose to have a real marketplace re-enactment of how it would have been in Jesus' time for all their hundreds of VBS kids and we were asked to be the chicken vendor. They even made the girls their own 'costumes' and literally hundreds of kids passed by where we gladly let them pet the chicken we were holding. One of our chickens even made the 5:00 local news that night!!! No photos of the girls HOLDING the chickens on the news.... just the chicken! Great memories.
Oh, and can you believe I took not one single photo of the VBS day and could really kick myself, but guess I was concentrating fully on making sure all went well with masses of children and our chickens. Knowing our chickens would be petted by the public, the girls made sure to give the chickens a thorough bath beforehand. Yes, you can even bathe a chicken.
I would like to encourage families with children who are interested in raising chickens to consider the
4-H program in your area.
Memory lane was not the original intent of this morning's post, but as my two girls are now young adults I am so grateful to have been able to be so involved not only in their schooling, but in their extracurricular activities like 4-H too, as their childhood seems to have past so quickly and I can say I enjoyed every minute.
