User Story: It's ALL About Chickens

by Steve Elsberry on Mar 26, 2024
Table of Contents

    Share

    From Steve Elsberry

    I was honored this morning , Angie Sykes Arnold, invited me to join their newly founded group, the Tilted Bell Chicken Farm. We used to have chickens on the farm and people do take great pride in their chickens. I'm sure this would be an interesting group to be in but as I explained to Angie, I had only one problem, I don't have a chicken.

    chicken

    Memories with Chickens: A Feathered Journey

    I live in an apartment and they tend to frown on keeping chickens in your apartment. The chickens roost on the balcony railings and make a real mess on the floor beneath, so no chickens. I do remember the first chicken I had, I was about eight years old and I got an Easter biddy. Now I've always wondered , is it "biddy" or "bitty"? Well when you don't know something , what do you do? You go to Google! So I Googled it and the answer is, "biddy” can be a small chicken or an elderly woman that tends to nosy into other peoples business. So there you have it, even Mr. Webster agreed and that makes it unanimous, Biddy it is. Bitty is just something small like , that girl is wearing an itty, bitty bikini. Back to the chickens. You could say and I agree that giving a small child an Easter biddy borders on cruelty . The child, through no fault on his own, thinks of that biddy as a play toy and very few biddies live past Easter. Mine was an exception. My grandparents made sure I treated that biddy well. Pop built me a small pen, called a chicken coop, Mom showed me how and what to feed it and how to handle it so as not to hurt it. That biddy grew into a full grown chicken and was able to roam the yard with all the rest of the chickens. She lived to ten or twelve years and laid an egg almost every day.


    Chicken

    Hatching Happiness: Stories from the Coop

    My next experience with chickens was when my daughter, Joanie, had a science project which was to hatch two chicken eggs. So what do daughters do when they have a problem, of course, they go to dear old dad, he can do anything. I don't know about doing anything but I did learn a lot from my granddaddy. I proceeded to build an incubator, which was a wooden box with a light socket installed, a light bulb was used for heat , and a piece of glass for the top. I got two eggs from a friend and neighbor , I knew the eggs were fertile because his chickens ran loose and you can bet on every egg being fertile. We put the eggs in the incubator and waited. you have to turn them every day and Joanie was very diligent about seeing after them.

    The days went by and I was beginning to get a little concerned but one day she came running to the house saying the chickens were hatching and sure enough there they were , two little biddies, looking for their mama, and there she was, the best mama two little biddies could ever have. They grew up, one being red the other white. Somewhere along the way something happened to the red one. The white one was named Coco and she had one episode during her life I should mention. She got sick, wouldn't eat or drink so Carole and Joanie decided to take her to the local veterinary, who was also a good friend. On the way to town the Georgia State Patrol had set up a license check point , when Carole stopped for the Trooper he looked in and saw Joanie holding the chicken and she smiled and said we are taking my chicken to the doctor. Being the good Trooper as he was, he wasn't about to hold up an emergency run, he just said , “Drive on”. The Doc checked the chicken over , reached into his bag of goodies and came out with some wonder drug, told them to put it in the chicken's water , make sure she drinks it and she will be all right. Sure enough it worked and Coco live to be an old hen.

    The Accidental Chicken Farmer: Adventures in Aviculture

    So you see I am not an experienced chicken farmer, there was one other time when Stephen and Robbie decoded to get in the chicken business and roamed the county looking for somebody to give them a chicken or two so they could start their business. All they got was some old hens no one wanted anymore , so when the money didn't come rolling in they got disheartened and quickly got out of the chicken business and guess who wound up with the chickens. I promptly gave them to Sherman who was working for me at the time and I imagine the chickens wound up as chicken and dumplings on his dinner table. That's my story with chickens. If you still want me in your group , I'm in.

    chicken farm

    Leave a comment