How Do You Spell a Chicken Noise?

About two years ago, I had (another) crazy idea that I presented to Marc. "Let's get chickens," I said. Frankly, I expected his typical brush off, and may have, only to have him come back at me with a yes. After his research of course. (Suggestions and learning experiences at end of blog)

Friends of ours with chickens passed along 4 chicks with the reminder that we were not sure of the sexes yet (we didn't want any roosters). We were not too concerned with the types of chickens either. We did attempt to sex them. They stayed inside the garage under a heat lamp for quite a while. It gave us time to build a coop (thanks to some help from said friends). They were adorable, fluffy little things! Chicken, Mary, Flower, and ___ all lived happily in the cardboard box until it was time to move them outside. After a period of time, we had eggs! We also had a rooster, ___. (The rooster's name will come to me).

One evening we came home and Marc went out to close up the chicken coop as we did then to keep out any predators. We had no idea that he would soon find the first predator had hit and lived in our very own house. Our dog, Cina, had gotten into the coop or made access for chickens to get out. Chicken massacre. We were devastated. I can't tell you how awful the look on Marc's face was or how heartbroken I was to watch Lola curl up in her grandfather's arms and cry. We found two but with no sunlight, we couldn't find the rooster or the 3rd hen. In the morning, we found the hen partially buried, but there was still no sign of the rooster. I was absolutely baffled. Where does a rooster go? Could she have eaten it completely?

I remember having coffee on our back deck and pondering the idea of a rooster clearing the 6 foot fence. Where on earth could that rooster be? At some point I heard a noise, crawled to peek beneath the deck and there he was. Bastard. I mean really, leaving the ladies behind and running for cover. He was unharmed, came out for a handful of scratch and he went back to live in the coop.

The researcher in Marc immediately went looking for replacements. As we were not as inclined to have to go through the whole chick growing again, we found a women in South Reno who sold pullets, young hens. We arrived, picked out 4 hens, and brought home Chicken (the 2nd), Babes, Hefe, and Porter. We also reinforced the coop. We added extra fencing and buried it deeper to avoid the dog digging.

The rooster soon began to crow and started getting a bit aggressive with the other chickens. I was lucky enough to have a friend take him for me and he now lives happily (last we knew) out at Girl Farm. We were fine with him being butchered, but apparently the breed was not good meat.

We have had a few issues over the past couple of years: pecking order, brooding, molting, etc. We lost one chicken that was bullied out and faced a fate of death with another dog at another location. We also adopted two more chickens, Honey and Flower (the 2nd).

We get anywhere from 1-5 eggs a day depending on the time of year and the weather. We sell a couple of dozen on occasion which helps with feed and scratch. I will be honest - Marc is the farmer and does most of the work. The coop is cleaned out once a week - the actual house - and their yard about once a month, depending on time of year. They are a little stinky, attract flies like crazy, eat almost everything we give them, and make cute chicken noises (which I don't know how to spell).

Here are a few things that we have learned:

• Dogs are instinctual and some not trustworthy. 
• There is really a pecking order. It can be blamed on a lot of things but I think ours was boredom. There are ointments to put on chickens to avoid it and we found it did work. However, if blood is drawn, they will not stop and go at the weak one. We luckily pulled ours out before she was hurt too badly. Suggestions for boredom include a hanging head of cauliflower or broccoli, balls, and more. We let them roam (with dog in the house), feed them a lot of scraps, and in hotter times, spray rivers of water into the coop.
• They will ruin the area they live on. No grass, weeds, or anything grows in the coop. 
• The brooding is happening with one hen in particular. She wants to sit on her eggs and gets very defensive when you try to go into grab the laid eggs. Babes has been in isolation twice - a dog crate with her own food and water - until she gets it out of her system. I think we will give her one more time and then off with her head. We won't be the ones doing it and I hope she is at least a breed of good meat.
• We did not easily throw in adopted chickens. They need to be introduced properly or the chickens will attack the outsiders. We built a temporary coop up against the current one and then snuck the new chickens in at night while the others were sleeping.
• The chickens sleep and rise with the sun. They have two roosting bars in the hen house and two laying boxes. All of the hens lay in one box.
• We have learned a lot. We have called on other friends with chickens, asked Google, and Marc bought  a few books but prefers Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens. 
• As far as I know, chickens are not allowed in the City of Sparks. In Reno, I am told that you can have  up to 20 and that roosters are prohibited. (The link I attached shows otherwise)

We love them, the kids love them, and they are very fun to have. And frankly, you will never taste a better egg than one fresh from your backyard.