(originally posted in 2008)
Besides gardening, chickens have been our (Marisa) first attempt at backyard farming. We learned a lot over the last year and a half of having chickens.
Here is how we got started...
We started with 2 baby chicks that our neighbors gave us. The chicks had been given to their 8 year old son by his uncle, gotta love those uncles! They seem to give our kids and teach our kids everything we don't want. They knew that I had wanted chickens for a while, so after about a week (when the novelty of having chickens wears off of kids), we got the 2 baby chicks. Oh, they were soooooo cute. Along with the deal, we got a little bottomless chicken coop (remember that it is bottomless, it is an important factor later in the story).
Not only did the kids and I love the baby chicks, so did our dog Jada.
Now, remember that part where I told you the chicken coop was bottomless? This is something you will want to remember if you decide to get chickens. Jada, being a playful little dog, well I guess I should say little in maturity yet large in size. Jada believes that anything left in the backyard is a toy, this did not exclude baby chicks. She was able to dig a hold in the grass, scoot the 'bottomless' chicken coop over the hole, the chicks fell in and she was able to get them. My husband and I came home from a night on the town to find a dead baby chick on our back porch. I was devastated!!!But, I did not give up. There is more to this story.
~marisa
AWWWWW, what a bummer! We have been very fortunate that our dogs are always interested in the chicks we bring home but never aggressive or inappropriate (even though our female has an incredibly high prey drive and our male loves to herd). We would never leave them unsupervised with chicks, because...well...they are large dogs afterall.
ReplyDeleteBut I find our female to actually be quite gentle with young animals (even kittens) if we let her know under no uncertain terms that they are part of the pack now. Our male is interested for about 2 seconds and then ignores them.
Chickens on the other hand they are both perfectly fine with unsupervised.
Our goats are another story though...