My anti-pet husband startled me a month or two ago when he announced that he thought we should get chickens. I was against the idea--he even gets irritated when he sees commercials for "adopt a puppy" or sees pet clothes on display in Walmart. We've considered it a great blessing to our family happiness that Eleni is allergic to cats and dogs--it makes life much easier. However, he assured me that chickens were different--they do something (laying eggs of course--who cares about a man's affection for his dog and all that?)
When we entered the IFA store to buy our chicks, the kids were ECSTATIC! They have wanted pets forever, and since we gave our fish away upon moving, they could hardly wait. Seth went a little overboard and bought a chick for each member of the family. Here they are, clockwise from top left: Pepper (Lydia's), Peaches (Jacob's), Goldie (Seth's), Penny (mine), Cottonball (Evie's), Black Stripe (Gabe's, and likely a rooster that will have to be given away to someone who can slaughter/keep it), and Cream (Eleni's--possibly soon to be renamed to ). Eleni has been 100% in love. She spent hours watching, picking up, and frightening the chicks half to death. As we speak, the kids are all out in the yard, running and yelling and causing sheer terror in the poor little things. You should hear the chirping!
They were so cute and fluffy! Now they're a month old and starting to look dinosaur-ish and hideous, but they're still a lot of fun.
Here's Eleni--she can't get enough of them! They're now outside in a chicken house and coop, and Eleni puts tablecloths over it ("It's so noisy with the tractors, mom--I just don't want them to get freaked out!").
I love that they're kind of dumb, and I mean that in the best way. They're not sneaky like cats, they're not all over you like puppies, and it's easy to clean up their messes.
And the kids think they're a blast!
3 comments:
I never thought I would see the day. Chickens in the King yard. I might need a whole day to process this. :) So proud of you guys for being brave enough to do this! I still have a small terror of pecking chickens {mostly roosters} from my childhood. :) Best of luck to you new farmers!
Unbelievable! Seth King and Pa Kettle. Good for you guys! Poor Eleni; I can't quite see how chickens could ever return her affections.
Those chicks are SO CUTE. I love them. That's a lot of chickens! Are you building a coop for them? I'm intrigued with the idea of chickens (seems like everyone who is anyone is raising chickens these days!) and with the idea of eating their nice fresh eggs---but, I don't think I could take the plunge. (Frankly, I keep hoping the hermit crab my sister-in-law gave our boys for Christmas [who gives other people's kids PETS for a present?!?!] will, ahem, shuffle off this mortal coil soon. I have nothing against him personally, I just don't want him as part of my life anymore.) HOWEVER. If we had lots of space, I would want bunnies. In a nice spacious hutch in the backyard, and plenty of places to run around. And I can see chickens fitting into that scenario somewhere.
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