First of all, before we talk poultry, this weekend was Cinco de Derby.  After a 3 hour bike ride outside with Allison, I headed down to a new brewery that just opened up in town where a lot of this…

…and this

was going on.  (Yes, that’s a bottle of Elijah Craig 12 year she’s pulling out of her purse at the taco truck.)   The tacos were DEEELicious.  And then a Mexican jockey won the Derby, which was appropriate.

Then on Sunday, after a year-long saga, guess what I found sitting in a box when I came home from coaching.

Meet Romy and Michele.

A family acquaintance has a whole flock of chickens and said she’d be happy to give us two to “try out”.  If we still want them in a week we pay her $16 for the two of them.  So these two are year-ish old hens that have been laying eggs for a few months.  Perfect.

You may remember our coop from the spring.

It’s small and humble, but total cost was $14 for scrap lumber at Home Depot, $16 for chicken wire, and $4 for hinges.  We were fortunate enough to have an almost-certified architect home for spring break (Paul’s brother Karl) who designed and helped build the whole thing.

During the day we’re going to let the ladies out to wander around that back area, which is fenced in and has a million grubs to eat.  At night they go in the coop, where there’s still enough room to strike a pose.

The arrival of chickens also meant a big trip to one of the best stores in town.

I seriously love this place and am always blown away by the employees’ farm knowledge.  And yes, that is an animal hedge cut into the shape of a horse wearing a decorative flower wreath under the sign.  And no, we didn’t get a limited edition University of Kentucky knife.

After picking up some hay for the egg laying box, a 50lb bag of chicken feed (that was the smallest they had, should last us…oh, 5 years), and some pine wood chips…plus a few other plants were not on the shopping list (this always happens, it’s like the Target of garden stores), we headed back to finish accessorizing the coop.

Paul, being the resourceful guy that he is, hammered together a makeshift feeding trough for them, but they keep knocking it over, so we still have to figure that out.  For water we actually bought a slow drip chicken water thing from SS, which was a good call.  (Apparently a chicken can drink up to a pint of water a day.  Who knew?)  The big challenge will be to see if they can figure out how to crawl up the ladder into the roosting area to sleep.

So, how is our other farm animal dealing with this?

Pretty much like that.  He spends a lot of time doing this.

Fortunately there’s no way he can break through that fool-proof gate wrapped in chicken wire being held up by a piece of plywood and a rock!  (We’re working on the fence.)  We did hold him up to a chicken and he just smelled it, didn’t try to bite.  So that’s a good sign?  I think more than anything he’s just curious why all of our attention was not focused on him yesterday.

One other thing is when you look out into our backyard…

Magical hidden chicken farm.  The coop is in a shaded space behind the garage and the big tree in the right hand corner…which is actually really nice because we don’t have to worry about them getting too too hot in the summer.

That’s all for now, we’ll see if they survive the first few days.

The end.

We live in Kentucky.  Home of Tyson and the Kentucky State Fair. Chickenlandia.  …OR SO YOU’D THINK!  Apparently it’s more complicated to get yourself some chickens here than I would have guessed.

First, we were going to get chicks.  I was excited about this because chicks are adorable.

Then we found out you can’t “sex” the chicks (determine their gender…I know, I wish they’d use a different word too) until their feathers come in.  So, if we don’t want roosters (which we don’t, they aren’t allowed in residential areas), we need to get pullets (not poulets), or young hens that have just started laying eggs.

So Paul did some research, which included perusing the Kentucky chicken classifieds and posting messages on Cluck, the Lexington Chicken “Coop”erative Facebook wall.  So far he has not been able to find anywhere that will sell you 3 sexed pullets.  He’s putting his money on Saturday’s Southern States Chicken and Small Animal Swap, where he is hoping someone will be willing to swap him 3 chickens for money instead of another chicken.  Unfortunately, I will be in Oregon and won’t be swapping any small animals.

So, despite the setbacks, we are still full steam ahead on Operation: Poultry.  I have, in fact, been driving around with a huge gas grill box in the back of the car for the past 2 weeks.  Everyone is like, “Oh no way!  You guys got a grill??”  Nope.  It’s a box for our chickens.  That Paul will pick up at the chicken swap Saturday.

Fingers crossed.

Update:  the chicken swap got rained out.

This rainy afternoon a new book came in the mail for Paul.

What we have learned so far:

• Chickens have muffs (tufts of feathers around their ears…ear muffs)
• If you don’t have a rooster, one of the hens in the coop will take on the roll of protector of the group and stop laying eggs
• Chickens that aren’t fed enough protein can become cannibalistic (ugh)
• Chickens can lose their toes from frostbite
• Chickens “don’t make good choices”, and…
• (…speaking of good choices…)  Cats and large dogs are usually cool with them and won’t bother chickens.  Most problematic?  Small dogs.

Paul is convinced we can teach Spike that the chickens are “part of the family” and he’ll leave them alone.  I told him fine, but if there is an incident I am not cleaning up the mess.