Chickens 101 and Getting to Know Your Neighbors

It looks like we're going to make as much of a farm as we can out of this 7000 sf suburban lot that we are blessed to live on. The garden is really starting to do great, now that it's actually getting warm enough to call summer. And, our most recent project is chickens. Yep, you heard me right, chickens. A month or so ago, Rebekah asked if we could have chickens (she had spent the night at Grammy's and Grammy has chickens). I told her to first call the city and see if it was OK (she did, and it is) and then ask her dad (she did, and he said OK).

After that, we had to build a chicken tractor. That was Jim's job and he did a marvelous job of it. We will need a couple of upgrades, but it's all a learning process and we are learning.

After he built the tractor, Grammy brought the chickens over. Last Monday, the kids were all excited and gathered around as we put the chickens in the tractor.

Arianah loves the chickens. Of course, Arianah loves all our animals. From the dog and cat to the lowly worm. (Every time we work in the worm composter, she wants to hold a worm.)

The next morning, the learning really started. Rebekah came upstairs first thing, looking very distressed. "Mom, the chickens are gone!" What?!?! Sure enough, Scooter, our golden retriever had broken into the tractor and let the chickens out. He even left a telltale tuft of golden fur on the torn edges of the tractor to make sure we could figure out it was him. After all, the day before, he had paid no attention to the chickens after his first cursory examination of the tractor, so we wouldn't have suspected him. Thus began a week of chicken chasing.

Rebekah and Hannah went door to door, knocking and asking neighbors if they had seen our chickens. They left fliers on the doors where no one was home. Rebekah pasted fliers up on the poles around the block. Trust me, it's not often you see a "lost chicken" sign in our neighborhood :)

To make a long story short, after much chicken chasing all over the neighborhood, many phone calls from neighbors, going from back yard to back yard, climbing trees, reaching under bushes, chasing down the street, hearing neighbors say "chickens?", "did she say chickens?", "how tall is the chicken?", throwing whiffle balls on the roof to try to scare a chicken down and much help from our neighbors, we finally retrieved Strawberry (the red chicken named because Elijah says she's red like a strawberry) on Thursday evening and Henrietta (the black chicken) on Friday evening.

So, if you're looking for a good way to get to know your neighbors, try getting some chickens and releasing them in the neighborhood. It works great. We have lived here 9 months, but we know many more neighbors now than we did a week ago.