My kids call them the Chimmies- short for Chimkins. They are all enjoying them. All but my daughter, who hates nature. She has been spitting curses toward them since we got them. I mean I never thought I would want birds, since they are dirty and squawky and can be mean, so I know where shes coming from. There is a smell factor involved and all. But, they looked like little Alvin, Simon and Theodore when I got them. So there's that.
We kept them in their box and my engineering son and I put our heads together, and a bunch of junk wood we found, to build a coop. It took about a month, but it is finished! He did all the hard math, and I , well, I can't stand a white wall in my house, so I decorated it!
My only real memory about chickens as a city kid in the 80's was from a cartoon book called "The chickens are restless" by Gary Larsen. You know the one, the FAR SIDE cartoons with maniacal dark sarcasm that my children just don't understand. So I wallpapered it with cartoons (the best is Ned and his chicken of depression.) I hope the chimmies don't learn to read, they might turn out pretty disturbed! I did paint a Sunset cartoon on the wall of their inside roosts so they could sleep peacefully ;)
We are only allowed 6 chickens living in town, so we got 6. The problem is, when you buy Pullets, they are small and hard to tell gender. So occasionally you will get a rooster accidentally, which you won't know about until they are full grown. One of them IS bigger than the rest, and has a larger comb coming in.. so we will see when it is egg laying time! If we do have a rooster, we will have to give it away (or something worse) because you can't have roosters in town by city ordinance!!
Each person in my family gets to name a chicken, and we are still discussing name options. Clara is considering disqust-o, unfortunate, and disgrace. (that kid, I mean really!) But she will warm up to them eventually .. I hope.
I also hope that the cat, and the dog will warm up to them, and not eat them!!! I am looking forward to fresh eggs, in a few months. Maybe??
Thanks for joining my journey,
Deborah King