Chicken adventures and and our ‘Queen of the Hill’ chicken ‘house’

Kathleen Anderson

My family and I moved here about five and a half years ago from California. We fell in love with the place that became our home at first sight. In addition to two homes on three acres, the former owners rescued animals.

They were the proud owners of two dogs, two cats, a mini donkey, three goats and several chickens. Except for the dogs and cats that lived inside the homes, there were several buildings specifically for the animals and about one-half acre that was fenced in, allowing them to roam freely.

So, in addition to the main house and mother-in-law unit, we ended up with two sheds to hold animal food, an enclosed stall for the mini donkey, a lean-to shelter for the goats and a chicken house.

I do not exaggerate when I say “Chicken House.”

I will not pretend to understand why the chickens were chosen to be “Queens of the Hill,” but they clearly were. Inside the chicken house is a tree, growing through a trunk size hole in the roof, a multi-level swing, TWO crystal chandeliers, six enclosed roosting boxes and an automated timed door so they could shut themselves in at night and go out about their business in the morning.

Humans may enter the chicken house through the front door which is the same size as the door on our house and then walk around comfortablably in the TWO rooms. One room is for laying eggs and one room is for sleeping in the rafters. One room gets a lot more use than the other.

When we moved in and the former owners moved out, they took all their animals with them and while I had fallen in love with the antics of the goats, my daughter, the owner of the house, became obsessed with chickens.

Somewhere along the way, she came across someone on social media that was giving away three chickens, and before I knew what happened, they were delivered to the Taj Mahal in our backyard. They came with food and we provided them with water and introduced them to the automated door.

They caught on quick, and all went smoothly until the morning we went out to find two of the three dead… not just dead but beheaded and disemboweled.

It was ghastly, to say the least. My daughter went to work after announcing she could not deal with the bodies, and my son-in-law was in California, so guess who got to bury the birds?

I did it but informed my daughter “I wouldn’t do it again – “no more chickens” became my battle cry.

I barely had time to recover (after finding the automated door’s battery had died and didn’t close) when she announced it was time to get more chickens.

“It was the door’s fault,” she declared. Now we know, so it won’t happen again.

Which is how the Eastside Urban Farm and Garden store became our home away from home. First of all, we had to select the baby chicks. This was done by choosing the color of their eggs.

Can’t have eggs all the same color, after all – how would you know who to have the chicken dinner conversation with if someone was slacking off on their laying duties?

Nor can you determine if you are choosing boy or girl chicks. It's all a secret until they grow up and start laying eggs or crowing in the morning.

We bought six chicks, a book on raising chickens, sacks of baby chick feed, water and feed containers and a heat lamp and headed for home.

The chicks were then placed in the dog crate in the dining room where they promptly walked out between the bars until we covered them with cardboard. And there they stayed, under the watchful eye of Betsy our pug, until they grew feathers and could move into the Taj Mahal.

In the past five and a half years we have replaced umpteen chickens. Raccoons, owls, and hawks have made this necessary. We have anywhere from six to twelve chickens at any given time and are lucky to find three eggs a day.

I say “find” because none of the chickens seem to care for their enclosed private boxes and instead lay wherever they happen to be when the urge strikes. Under tree roots, in the donkey’s shelter, or in the front yard. My daughter believes in free-range chickens, and sometimes they even noodle over to the neighbors.

It’s an easter egg hunt every day at our house. The eggs are even pretty colors.

The great-grandkids love it…

Kathleen Anderson writes this column each week from her home in Olympia. Contact her at  kathleen@theJOLTnews.com or post your comment below.