Chicken Farmer

I thought it was a rather cruel way of saying Happy Birthday to me when I got a text from Ronny that said, "Chris and I are picking up chicks."  Even though Ronny has wanted chickens for a while, you can imagine my reaction when he came home on my birthday evening with 6 of these....

Trust me, I tried really hard to get a picture without poop.  After my initial "what are you thinking" moments, I got excited about them - hard to resist when they're so little and adorable.  But then they turn into stinky, ugly teenage chickens within DAYS.  Stinky, disgusting, messy, gross teenage chickens that are still too young to be outside so they are stuck in a big box in the garage taking up  square footage and effectively giving your entire home a distinct chicken coop aroma.

 As soon as Ronny had a free moment, he and his buddy Chris started building the coop.  Luckily for the hens Chris is a builder by trade, so this chicken coop is probably more solid than our house.

 Everybody had a hand in the painting....

 I love it!  Not only do I love how cute it is, but I LOVE it for getting the chickens out of my house even more.  The kids are checking every morning for our first egg (even though we tell them it probably won't be for another couple months) - they can't wait! 

It's been surprising to me how social chickens are.  I don't know if it's all hens or just ours, having been handled so much by the kids.  But when we let them out to roam the yard for bugs and slugs they seem to follow us around.  I have a feeling I'm going to have a lot of company weeding the garden this year. :)