I'm supposed to post something about humor on the homestead each Wednesday, but there's nothing funny about the schedule I've been keeping recently!! Whew!

Not all of us were "homestead born". Maybe, like me, you were once a city slicker. Maybe, then you can relate to my first experiences with raising chickens.

(copied from a prior blog entry)

Today my daughter brought home a library book that I love: "Barnyard in Your Backyard - a beginner's guide to raising chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, goats, sheep and cattle" - edited by Gail Damerow.  On a night when I have a bazillion other things to do, this book has sent me on a nostalgic traipse down memory lane.  So here I am online, blogging about chickens!  I will NOT, however, go rifling through Rubbermaid tubs of pictures waiting to be scrapbooked to add to my post. Maybe another time!

We bought twenty chicks "straight run". That means they aren't sorted by gender - you get the luck of the draw. With our luck, that turned out to be eight roosters and twelve hens (or cockerels and pullets in technical chicken terms).  Anyway, these babies were moved into our dining room, in a nice litte cage with a heat lamp. Awww, I'm wishing I dug out some pictures of the kids holding these little chickies in their hands..but I digress. Just let me say this. There is NO fragrance of Yankee Candle that can overcome the scent of chickens in your dining room. 

In a magazine somewhere, I found plans for an English style portable chicken coop. My dh, being a very obliging sort of guy, built me the coop of my dreams, and the children whitewashed it (um, pictures to follow, sometime). The only problem was that it weighed about 200 pounds, so it was only portable when hooked up to the back of the tractor.   Also, it soon became apparent that a structure designed for England's misty meadows was no match for a wind swept ridge top in Wisconsin. The first wind storm sent it ripping end over end down the hill, with chickens flying everywhere. It gave them a nasty fright, and put them badly off their laying.

After a while we figured out that eight roosters and ten hens (we lost two) was not a sustainable ratio. One day when I was off to town , my husband decided to butcher all but two roosters on his lunch break. (He was working from home as a computer guy.)  Well, it took him ALL afternoon to get the project done.  When I came home, there was a row of roosters laid out on the bottom shelf of the fridge to greet me.  I was used to buying plump roasters from the meat market in Chicago - these guys looked like the scrawny rubber chickens  for sale at party shops.  No kidding.

Anyway, I gamely put them in a couple of roasting pans, popped them in the oven, and hoped for the best. What a nasty surprise...homesteading theory gone bad! (Actually, we just hadn't done our homework - now we know better!) Our roosters tasted like rubber bands soaked in axle grease.  To top it off, the girls were crying because Daddy had inadvertently murdered their favorite feathered  friend. They (and us) just couldn't choke the poor boys down. Not a successful experience overall. 

However, our remaining hens were excellent layers.   I'll always enjoy the memory of  having fresh brown eggs from my Rhode Island Reds when we lived in the country!

Don't forget, leave me a comment, or drop me an email if you have a funny hometead story, joke or riddle that you'd like to share. Thanks!

Eleanor Joyce

www.homesteadblogger.com/homesteadersatheart

www.homeschoolblogger.com/ejoyce,ink