Tweets...or uh, "Clucks?"

Some of my favorite chicken related Twitter posts from last spring, starting with the day I got 'em:

• On my way home with a boxful of baby chicks.

• Thinks it's hilarious and fitting that Sera named one of the chicks "popcorn"

• Feels like a nervous first time mother. I keep checking to see if they are still breathing. This is ridiculous. They are CHICKENS people!

• Listening to my child baby-talk to the chicks saying such things as "Do you want to be a chicken?? Dooo you??"

• Is socializing my chickens.

• For reals just googled "how to get my chickens to like me"...... No results were found.

• Has a rooster eating organic whole wheat pasta scraps under the dining room table. WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!?

• My chickens have gotten ugly and dumb. I could totally eat one if I had to.

• Me: "Girls, what do you want for lunch?" Amelie: "Ummm...I want.......Rooster nuggets."

• *Thought I was getting a bit too obsessed with the chickies until I saw professional portraits online of someone's chicken in a santa hat.

*If this is you, don't be offended...I think it's great that you take portraits of your chickens.
Also, I tweeted that before I began taking portraits of my chickens. *Cough*

Bringing Home Baby....Chicks

My friend Stephie gave me a call, saying she wanted to go pick up some baby chicks, and we decided to ride together.

My husband wasn't as "enthusiastic", initially as I was, so I called him on the way to the Tractor Supply to let him know I'd be bringing home little chickies that afternoon.

I'm one stubborn lady, so he knew better than to talk me out of it...I already had visions of the girls picking out their own baby chicks, and the picture of sweetness it would be to see them collect eggs from our yard every day.

The clerk at the Tractor Supply was a young teenage girl, and she was visibly nervous as I peppered her with chicken questions.
Turns out the "chicken expert" had gone home for the day, but I didn't drive 45 minutes to come home empty handed.

I tried to figure out which chickens were "pullets" (baby hens - future egg layers) and which were "straight run" (males and females - no way to know which is which).
The pullets looked all the same, like a sea of carnival gold fish, each of them little tufts of hopping golden fuzz.
The straight run were all different colors, sizes and breeds.
The store required a minimum 6 chick purchase, so I picked out (what I thought to be) 4 pullets to be sure I got some egg layers, and 2 straight run just because they were SO pretty.

We drove home with happy meal shaped boxes full of baby chicks and my oldest daughter named one for herself, "popcorn" and my 2 year old named one "cup."
I realized then, that I could never eat a chicken that had a name, but definitely looked forward to some tasty eggs!

At home I popped them all into a big cardboard box with paper shreds on the bottom, a small water dish and feeder and a heat lamp.

They spent the first night in the bathroom and I felt like a new mother, checking on them every couple of hours through the night to make sure they were still breathing!

We kept the temp around 90-100 degrees the first week, then lowered the temperature down by 5 degrees every week until warm, hardy feathers replaced their peach fuzz.

Most people had told me to expect to lose one or two due to sickness, etc., but they all thrived and soon were old enough to move out of the cardboard box, and let explore the outdoors!

Hatching a Dream

The first spring in our new home was approaching.
What would be the first step in transforming our city plot into a 1/4 acre into a peaceful, food producing haven?

The more I read about keeping chickens, the more intrigued I became.
The girls wanted pets and I wanted to stop paying $5 for a dozen local, fresh, organic eggs.
Hens seemed the perfect solution!

Being the infoholic I am, I researched *every* detail - cost of building a coop, maintaining the chickens, fencing in our backyard, etc.

We figured out it wouldn't start paying off until after the 1st year.
The fact that the girls would gain an invaluable education on where their food actually comes from, and we could gather fresh eggs from our back yard outweighed all the negatives of start up costs.

I researched our city codes - turns out there was NO clear answer on the legality of chicken keeping within city limits.

Some city officials answered yea, some answered nay, and the written code was more confusing.
Farm animals were prohibited, but there was no clear listing of what a "farm animal" was.

We determined we would go ahead and keep chickens as long as the neighbors were happy, and we would not keep roosters.

Off to the local Tractor Supply I went, with a friend, to purchase some fuzzy baby chicks.

Country Folk in the City

My husband and I spent our childhood years running around free on endless acreage.
Living in California, we were not used to seeing typical green pasture type farms.
I was raised on a rugged cattle ranch, surrounded by walnut groves in sunny Paso Robles.
My husband Josh, the son of a marine biologist, grew up about 20 miles west on the coast, on an Abalone Farm.

Abalone?! Even I, a native Californian had never seen or touched a real live slithery Abalone until the first Thanksgiving with my husband's family.
Abalone and Cattle are not so similar, but both my husband and I grew up with a love of nature and the opportunity to taste, smell and delight in the experience of a local farm.

Flo on the Dubost ranch mid-80s:

Josh and his family on the Abalone Farm:

Josh (left) and his brother, Nate.
Not an Ab Farm photo, but SO cute, couldn't resist:

Fast forward a few years, a couple of wedding bands, and a couple of babies later, to Nashville, TN.
We moved for music (there was not a lot of oppurtunity for me as a musician living in a small town) for more affordble living (a chance to own our own property) and to purposefully immerse ourselves in the kind of diversity that can only be found in a large urban setting (definitely not in our small, affluent coastal community).

I immediately fell in love with museums, coffee shops, people of every color and persuasion, and the hustle and bustle of city life.

As much as I loved the city, the part of me that was raised along side cows and crickets longed for a piece of simplicity. A night under a star studded charcoal sky. An afternoon on a hill feeling the wind and hearing it rustle through the tall golden grass.

We bought our first home in the artsy/eclectic neighborhood known as East Nashville.
The moment I saw the house, I knew it was "the one".
Our oldest daughter fell in love with the sprawling dogwood tree out front.
The backyard was flat and spacious, beckoning to be filled with the sounds of our daughters playing, and maybe a sprinkle or two of enough seed to produce a small vegetable garden.

On a cul-de-sac, surrounded by spacious lots, we got as close to our rural upbringing as possible, still being able to make it downtown within 10 minutes.

I felt so thankful as we spent that first evening looking out our front window at the glorious sunset....imagining our children and our own little dreams taking root, and growing on our very own little plot of land.

Welcome Post

A year ago, I started my own little backyard chicken farm.
Despite having grown up on a ranch, I knew little about chickens, farming, or anything really like that when I began keeping chickens.

I got mixed reactions from my friends and the public.
I was surprised that so many people were impressed, since, once again, my knowledge about chickens was about as vast as..oh, say a chicken's knowledge of...anything.

But, here I am - a year later ALL of my chickens have survived, so I figure I must have some pearls of poultry wisdom to broadcast into the world.

What this is not, is an educational site.
There are thousands of people who are more knowledgeable on the subject of backyard homesteading.
These are just experiences and anecdotes in the life of an accidental chicken farmer.

So, pull up a chair, learn a thing or two, and laugh at the crazy bird lady (that's ME!) you won't be disappointed;)