Chicken Hearted

To have fresh organic eggs every day is a wonderful treat!  Raising chickens is not difficult but there are a few things to learn.  I live on 1.4 acres of land and we have nightly visitations of Bobcat, bear, Opossums, Coyotes, and a variety of smaller critters as well.  Our chickens need to be locked up at night in order to avoid predators. 

There are a lot of web sites online that will teach you how to care for your chickens.   They do get sick very easily and you need to stay on top of each illness so that it doesn't spread to the others of the flock.  Keep your chickens wormed regularly, and keep antibiotics on hand.  Even with that, the loss of chickens seems to be inevitable so don't get too attached.  Having said that, one of the most enjoyable things to do is to sit on the porch and watch these animals roam the back yard and interact with one another.  They can be more entertaining than some of the mind numbing shows on tv! They each have their own personalities.  We have one Americana that refused to associate with the other chickens...we call her Princess.  We had a gold silky rooster that was a wonderful watch dog!  He would attack from behind when you weren't looking.  If you turned around to look at him, he would pretend he was just eating bugs...but as soon as you turned your back to him again he would rush you,throwing his entire body into your legs!  We called him Doofus...because if he walked into a corner of the chicken coop, he couldn't find his way out again.

In watching the chickens, I have come to realize this must have been a great past time over the ages for  people everywhere because there are so many words of wisdom that have derived from  the coop and it's members.  Here are a few:

Chickens have come home to roost: they do come back to the coop every evening

Rule The Roost: This is the rooster's job

Pecking Order: The hens DO let the newbies know who was there first

No Spring Chicken

Old Biddy

Flew The Coop

Up With The Chickens

Walking On Eggshells

Strutting Your Stuff

Bird Brain

Ruffle Your Feathers

Chicken Out

Hatch An Idea

Egg on Your Face

Play Chicken

Something To Crow About

Brood Over It

Chicken Scratch

Stuck In Your Craw

Cock and Bull story

Nesting

Empty Nester

Made From Scratch

Cooped Up

Cocky

Running around Like A Chicken With His Head Cut Off

Fox Guarding The Hen House

Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens

Nest Egg

Scratching Out A Living

Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Chicken Feed

Feather Your Nest

Don't Count Your Chickens Before The Hatch

Mother Hen

Scarce As Hen's Teeth

Chick

Hen-Pecked

Cock Of The Walk

Too Many Roosters In The Hen House

Laid An Egg

Bad Egg

Have To Break An Egg To Make An Omelet

Not Everything It's Cracked Up To Be

Good Egg

Egghead

Don't Lay An Egg

Here is a fantastic Australian recipe that has been around for Yonks (ages).  It is a traditional Friday night dinner on the farm....

Apricot Chicken

1 whole cut up chicken (traditional, I prefer boneless, skinless breasts or thighs)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 oz butter

2 cans apricots with juice

1 pkg. onion soup mix

salt and pepper

Method:

Using butter, Brown the chicken in a fry pan, then remove and set asside

In same pan, add a bit more butter and cook onion until tender.

Blend soup mix and apricot juice and bring to a boil. This is when you scrape off all the wonderful bits that stuck to the bottom of the pan while frying the chicken.  Keep stirring, it will lift off and join with the gravy adding flavor.

Season with salt and pepper. 

Put chicken back into pan and add apricots. 

Cover and simmer for about 30 min or so.

Serve over rice.



This is Doofus

This is Princess

The Coop.  We found the old Goat house on Craig's List and my husband added the layer boxes on each side, and the hinged door so we can lock them up at night to protect them from predators.  During the day they roam the entire yard.  I leave the coop yard door open for them to come and go at will.  Water and food outside the fence.