They're Here!

     One day in the middle of September, I went shopping and brought home a ceramic hen.  All of the kids thought it was so cute and acted so excited over something so simple.  So, I said to Dave (my husband), "We should get real ones!"  I don't think he took me completely serious at first as he said, "Sure."  So, the next day, we watched a lot of YouTube videos and did a lot of reading on the internet.  We decided that we did indeed want to give this "backyard chickens" thing a try.  We have four children and although to that point we had never thought of chickens, or of the benefit of fresh eggs, it just seemed the perfect family project.  My second son was so excited when we told him we were getting chickens and building a coop, you'd have thought we told him we were putting Disney World in the backyard. We've always had the thought far back in our minds of living on a true farm, but we decided that we'd just bring the farm to the ideal living arrangement we already have. While it may not be a full blown farm, we plan for it to give us just enough of that life to keep us happy.  
     So, within the next week of that original conversation, we had placed our order from www.cleancoops.com to get blueprints for a coop and had contacted www.mypetchicken.com to place an order for chicks.  Since then, the coop is almost complete and the chickens have arrived.  They are living in our garage in a brooder box. With the use of many power tools my dad has (thank goodness!),  my husband along with a very good friend, continue to keep late night hours to get the coop...or the hen house, as I call it...ready for the chickens by the time they need it. (That'll be a few more weeks.)  We've only had the sweet baby chicks for four days but we already find a lot of entertainment and joy from watching them and caring for them.   Although we both have some grandparents and great-grandparents that knew a lot about farming, we are the first in the family in quiet a while to tackle such a task.  However, the more we've discussed it, the more we've found some people in our social network that have chickens and we never even knew.  Funny how chickens can open up such a new world of conversation!  Through this blog, we hope to spread a little information to all the people out there like us who have some crazy thought and decide to act on it...to let you know you really can do it.  That's just it, you have to do it!  Together we can learn along the way.  We'll let you know the things we find that work and the ones that don't.  Welcome to Our Crazy Coop...