(Fluffy)Indigoat is in the Dimond District in Oakland, in our back yard. As of now we have two cats, Fluffy and TJ, and five chicks. Before this batch of chicks we had 5 others. They had names when we first got them but they were all Barred Plymouth Rocks and it was too hard to tell them apart.
Our new chicks are probably about a month and a half old now, and they're starting to grow some real feathers. The Americanas are Banana, Britney, and Chickosaurus and and Black Austrolorps are Dusk and Luna. When we first got them they looked like 3-inch-long puff-balls with a couple wing-tip feathers. Now they are starting to fly around and look more like teenage chickens. In the day time we keep them in a triangular enclosure in our yard which we move throughout the day so that they can find new bugs and weeds to eat. We also like giving them treats like worms from the compost buckets or bags of old lettuce that we find in the street. (photo: C. holding Chickosaurus)
Chickens are great pets and their capacity for personality is often underestimated. All of the chicks are already very different. Banana is the dumb one. We let her out next to our neighbor and co-chick-caretaker's dog and she tried to run right into its mouth. Luckily we caught her in time. She only has two speeds: pecking at bugs in place and 100-miles-an-hour. Britney is the nasty one. When her sisters poop she'll peck at it and then rub her beak in it. This is especially bothersome when the poop in question is on your shirt. Chickosaurus is the bully and she likes to climb over the other ones and push them
out of the way. Dusk and Luna are a little hard to tell apart. They're both very sweet and affectionate. Dusk doesn't run away if you put your hand out to pick her up - she'll actually stretch her neck out like a cat that wants to be petted. (photo: from right to left, Banana, Luna, and Britney; Chickosaurus in front)
Our homestead is far from completed. We are an urban farm in progress. Five more chicks are arriving in a week and we're planning on buying a couple of goats in the spring. We've been reading a lot of books about city-farms and we've been very inspired, especially by Novella Carpenter's book Farm City. I haven't actually read it yet but it was her book that inspired my mom to want to get goats. We're going to visit her farm, Ghost Town Farm, in a couple weeks when she has a barbeque/tour/book signing.
When I tell people that I have chickens, their first reaction is "Don't you live in the city?" and their second is "Do you kill and eat them?" The answer to the first question is yes, we do, but we are blessed to have a large yard with lots of weeds to eat, and they really don't cause any problems. They may sqwauk a little in the mornings when they're laying eggs but other than that hens are quiet, docile animals who like being left alone to peck and take dust baths and fertilize the garden. The answer to the second one is NO!!! Not everyone in my family is vegetarian, and we claim to be hard-core farmers, but our chickens are pets. We eat their eggs but we would never slaughter them. Our first ones died of old age and raccoons. We do know people who would slaughter them for us if we wanted to but we become so bonded with them that they are like a part of our family.
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