Chicken Personalitites and Advantages

Antoinette - poking around by her old house Chickens can be quite eccentric. When I upgraded my hens from their white trash house to the cute cottage where they now reside, they were not at all appreciative - even though construction only went a week over and came in a mere 10% over budget...

I built them a nesting box in which to lay their eggs, but they flat out refused. They would sit in that house all day crossing their legs and when I came home to let them out - run to the garden and lay under the lillies.

I'm smarter than a chicken.

One day I took an egg from under the lillies and put it in the nesting box in their house hoping to encourage them to lay where they're supposed to. The next morning I found Antoinette and Elisa rolling the egg out of the nesting box with their beaks.

So I put 2 eggs in there and the next day they were repositioned also.

The girls still won't lay in the box, but at least now they keep the eggs in the house to humor me.

Advantages to raising Chickens

Chickens have individual personalities just like dogs and cats. They can be very loyal and are more often than not - VERY amusing. I've heard many, many stories in the past couple of weeks, ranging from a chicken in Charlotte who goes to visit nursing homes, to chickens that go on outings with their owners just like dogs. (Imagine the Sewanee bank giving out corn kernels at the drive through in addition to lollipops and dog biscuits!)

Unlike typical pets, chickens have three distinct advantages :

eggs - I covered the benefits of fresh pastured chicken eggs in previous posts.

fertilizer - there appear to be many uses, "Man builds giant chicken manure catapult to battle vandals" http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/19/man-builds-giant-chi.html.

A more conventional application - according to the University of Florida IFAS Extension,
"Animal manures have been used effectively as fertilizers for centuries. Poultry manure has long been recognized as perhaps the most desirable of these natural fertilizers because of its high nitrogen content." http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AA205. Chickens wandering around your yard will fertilize as they go. Their coop will also be a wealth of fertilizer once composted. Some people house their birds in a chicken "tractor" which can be moved around the yard to fertilize different areas.

pest control - chickens love to eat bugs - ticks, mosquitoes, fleas, grubs, aphids, slugs, snails, grasshoppers.... in all stages - eggs, larvae, adults.

An unexpected advantage for me - I've cut back considerably on the use of nonorganic products in my yard because I don't want to harm the chickens.

The honey bees said, "thank you!".