Chickens???

If anyone had told me 10 years ago, hell 5 years ago, that I would own chickens...I would have told them they were crazy. I mean let's be for real I grew up in the military, where we lived in base housing or rented houses, having anything more than a dog, cat or even fish as a pet was all we could have. (Although, there was that time my Pappy convinced my mom to let us take home some cockatiel's that he had raised, or the time he took us to the farm auction and we picked out our own dwarf bunnies.)

But chickens? No, no way!! Growing up I had one bad experience after another with birds. And not just birds, but birds of all shapes and sizes. Remember those Cockatiels I mentioned, well we were sent back with a pair. A beautiful yellow and white female, and a gray and yellow male. They were siblings, the male was supposed to go to my Aunt in Maryland and the female was going to stay with us. Well the day after we got back from Florida, I woke up and went in to uncover the birdcage only to find the male covered in blood, blood all over the cage and our beautiful little female (who still didn't have a name) headless on the bottom of the cage. Which of course, I ran to my mom screaming and crying. Talk about traumatic!!

When I was around 10 or so, another Aunt bought some land down in Florida and was raising Chinese Geese. Que Jenni's bad experience #2. I'm sure they're lovely animals, but birds of every kind and I just didn't get along apparently. I was chased and bitten by said geese. Then when I was about 17, I was chased around the backyard by a friend's rooster. Around 20, I almost had the top of my ear bitten off by another friend's Macaw. And last but not least around 22 I had a hole pecked into the top of my head by a Lori at Busch Gardens in Tampa while feeding the birds in the aviary.

So, chickens???? No! Never!! But over the years I've gotten better about my fear of birds. I owned a Parakeet, named Cloud, and he was the best bird ever. When my sister-in-law got chickens a few years ago I fell in love. They were the cutest things ever. So, when we bought our property I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to get chickens. Especially since right after we bought a Siberian Husky puppy who would have eaten our chickens in a heartbeat if given half the chance. So, of course, I was worried, and couldn't make up my mind.

After 2 years of indecision, I finally made up my mind. I wanted chickens. Now the search really began. That's a story for another time. In the meantime look at these adorable little faces.