Chickens, Chickens Everywhere

For those of you who aren't aware, we recently became the proud owners of two chickens. Paige was spurred to get chickens when she learned that her neighbor had chickens and Sunset Garden magazine did a spread on how hip it is to own chickens in the city. Paige's mom flew out her brother (Cole) and his girlfriend (Kaylor) to build the swanky chicken coop - a little two-story A-frame with a red roof. Paige's brother (Conor) directed her to the website, "MyPetChicken.com", for a survey on what is the right breed for you. From this, Paige decided we needed an Australorp and an Ameraucana. The Australorp will lay 5 brown eggs per week, and the Ameraucana will lay 3 blue eggs per week. Craigslist had breeders selling chickens at outrageous prices to all these silly city folk. And since no breeder was selling both Astralorps and Ameraucana's, Paige had to take a six-hour trek over labor day weekend to the North and East bays to get one chicken from two different breeders. We ended up with a 7-week old Astralorp (Ariel) and a 10-week old Ameraucana (Rosita, or Rosie for short).

Ariel and Rosie have been settling into their new home. Reid absolutely loves them. We visit the chickens at least once a day. She bends down to where she can see them, points, yells something incomprehensible, and then looks to see that you understand. It warms the heart. Now, things have even gotten more interesting. As of Sunday, we have started letting Ariel and Rosie out during the day to enjoy the yard. At first, they were very chicken (ha!ha!) about the experience and only ventured 2 feet outside the coop. But today, they were all over the place. It was so humorous to see them hiding amongst the rosemary bushes and hydrangeas.

Tyler, originally quite negative on this idea, has become more of a fan of late. He takes shredded cheese out to the chickens to feed them out of his hand. Ariel just loves this. The minute you start bending down, she runs full throttle towards you. It's almost a little scary the way she darts at you. Let's just say, I wouldn't want to be a worm. Speaking of worms, our roommate Dana hand picks caterpillars off the bushes to feed to Ariel. This is really a treat apparently.

Here are a few photos of the urban chicken-farming experiment. Thus far, I would say we are all liking it quite well. It will be even better when they start laying eggs - at approximately 26 weeks - but that's a long ways off yet.