The Fight to Keep Backyard Chickens Hits Close to Home

Well, the fight to keep chickens in your own backyard has finally reached my county. And you better believe that I am going to support the Pond family in this fight! I am asking you, my friends and readers to help out. Please take a minute to read the article in the MDJ. I encourage you to leave a positive comment about owning pet chickens. You have read my blog. You can go back on my blog and read again( or for the first time) about my journey into having pet chickens. I love my girls and I can't imagine not having them. We have to educate people about chickens as pets. Get ready for lots of posts about chickens coming soon!!!

Now, click below and start reading!!


East Cobb man campaigns to keep his backyard chickens

Houston, We Have an Egg!

Our first egg! Excuse the fuzziness, I stuck my arm in the coop to take it. I found it Wednesdayafternoon when I let the girls out. I did the usual, " I guess that I should take a look." Surprise! An egg. I did a happy dance all of the way back into the house to get the camera.

Later in the afternoon I decided that I should take a look around to see if there were eggs anywhere else around the yard. Sure enough, I found a clutch of eggs in the claw foot tub. The claw foot tub also happened to be Lydia's new favorite spot.

Here are all five of the her pretty eggs. We are so proud of Lydia. Five eggs means that she had been laying for five days or so. I checked the eggs to make sure that they were good. To test an egg you can put it in a glass of water. If it floats, it is bad. The sinkers win. Every egg sunk. Ya-hoo! Normally I don't know that I will wash the eggs. If you don't wash the eggs they can stay unrefrigerated for 7-10 days. They have a natural coating called a bloom that keeps bacteria out.

I am so excited to have fresh eggs of our own. Did you know that by the time eggs arrive at your local grocery store that they are an average of one month old? Just think about how long we let them sit in our own fridges after we buy them. I am so happy for my fresh eggs.

And look how pretty fresh eggs are. Here is another fuzzy picture. It is hard to take a photo of an egg yolk. I wanted you to see how rich and almost orange it is. That is a free range egg! A deep color is a good sign of good nutrition. Let me tell you, it was yummy! It will still take awhile to get used to getting breakfast from our pets. It's not something that we are used to.

Thank you Lydia for the delicious eggs! She laid anther one today in the nesting box in the hen house! Go Lydia. What a smart girl you are. Thanks to my sister for this amazing photo of Lydia. Isn't she stunning?

And not to be left out ~ Atta Girl sitting on the handrail of our back steps. They like to sit there and look into the house. Atta Girl, will you be our next egg layer?

Coop, Here It Is!

I tried to find my pictures of the progression of the coop and couldn't find them. So, here is a video I took trying to catch the boys crowing. Of course they didn't. And I am not sure how clear the video is. I will take some more pictures soon. Anyway, Coop, Here It Is!

Thanks Dave for building our chickens an awesome home. They love it. And I love you!

The Move Begins

The chicky babies aren't babies anymore. They are full blown teenagers! We went to Ohio for a week and came back to chickens with full feathers and personalities to boot! We lost one while we were gone. Gertrude was lost to a snake. The snake didn't make it however. Thanks Sharon for watching my babies!

When we brought them home we moved them into the backyard during the day and indoors by night. This is still our routine.

Here they are exploring the yard.

This is their temporary setup. It seems to be working pretty well. They love to hang out by the tree trunk, my little tree huggers.

Here they are eating.

Down on their level.

And the beginnings of the coop. Dave has brought it a long way. It is going to be a chicken mansion. They will be so happy!

I'll have more to post soon. We are working on the coop all weekend. Stay tuned...