Welcome to the first installment of The Homestead Kids Blog! Miss Magoo and Little Man put their expertise together today to tell you what kids think about raising chickens. They even took all of the pictures for this post.
I let Miss Magoo type for a few minutes, and this is what she came up with:
I love chickens so much because they’re cute. They peck at you and your feet and your pants. Be careful they swing on their feeder, and sit on their water can, and poop everywhere.
Miss Magoo loves raising chickens. From the moment we got baby chicks, she has been enamored, and has been the one sitting in with the chickens and playing with them. She can tell them apart, and has named every one.
Little Man was a little bit nervous around the chickens at first, but he’s coming to enjoy them. He especially likes to catch bugs for the chicken to eat.
Little Sister mostly avoids the chickens. They’re pretty big now, so I think she’s a bit frightened by them, but I have no doubt she’ll come around too.
Since that wasn’t exactly enough for a blog post about what kids think about raising chickens, I interviewed the kids to get the rest of what they think. I’ve put in parenthesis and non-italicized my input.
Miss Magoo’s thoughts on raising chickens :
I didn’t name every one of them, actually. Little Man named some of them. They do crazy stuff. Little Turkey (who is a Golden Sexlink, not a turkey) roosts on my arm, but sometimes it scratches my arm.
It was fun when we saw the yellow ones (the Leghorns), and one of them just jumped up and started roosting on the side of the wall in the coop, instead of on the roost!
What do people need to know about chickens? Well I wrote about how they pooped every where and everything. But they also peck all over, and if you put your hand down by them to try and feed them, they might bite your hand. And you don’t want them to bite your hand.
The Leghorns are a bit skittish of people.
Sometimes I’ve heard that snakes come in and eat the eggs sometimes, so always be careful when you check for eggs.
And they want to roost, even when they’re just little. If you don’t have the roosts built yet, like we didn’t, then it can take them a while to figure out what the roosts are for.
What Little Man thinks about raising chickens:
Keep a lamp over the chickens when they’re babies still, or they get too cold.
You need to clean their coop once a week (I actually clean it every other week).
They like to roost on everything, and they poop a lot on everything! You have to walk on the poop to feed them, so don’t get grossed out by that.
When they’re babies you want to keep them in a brooder separated from the big chickens.
Wise words about raising chickens from Little Sister:
Eggs. (Eggs, huh? I have no idea what she meant by this except that eventually we will get eggs from the chickens.)
I think they drink water (they do). And they eat watermelon, even the green part that people can’t eat. And they peck at their self and other chickens, too. And they eat their poop if you don’t clean the coop. Yuck!
If you steal chickens, Jesus doesn’t want you to.
So there you have it, what kids think about chickens, according to a 7 year old, a 6 year old, and a 3 year old!
Come back next Saturday for another installment of the Homestead Kids Blog!
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That’s too cute! 🙂
Would love to have you share your posts at the Simple Homestead blog hop on Thursdays. We’re all about “homesteading, homeschooling and homemaking”!
Kathi at Oak Hill Homestead
Thanks for the invite! I’m a day late, but I just linked up!
I loved this post! I can’t wait to have my own children to share my chickens with. Yes, there is definitely a lot of poop involved. I also loved the little one and agree that we should not steal chickens! Too cute.