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Mrs. Donna's Story About Chickens

We started out with one chicken that flew over the fence. I was taking care of my mother at the time and she had dementia.

She just took on to this chicken. She brought it out a bowl of cat food and cat bed. We thought, "Oh, wow. This is something that she'd really be interested in."

We got on Tradeo and found out where I could get some chickens. I got a little hutch and we brought it to my mom. She saw us setting them up in the backyard and she said, "Oh, no, no. I don't want that. I don't want that." I said, "Well, okay."

We took it next door to my house and we started out with two hens. Of course, they laid eggs and then one wanted to set and I thought, "Gee, that's sad that she's going to set on eggs that are not fertile."

I called the animal shelter and I found out a gentleman that raised birds, chickens and they gave me his address. I went up and knocked on his door and asked him if I could rent a rooster. He said, "Sure." He said, "But if the rooster works out, go ahead and keep it." He had like six roosters and he gave me this one that I've had for the last 11 years. He's obviously worked out very well.

We went from two Buffingtons like this to - I have 34 chickens now. Some chickens have been given to me and some we hatched, but I managed to have two roosters because I have Banty chickens. The Banty rooster takes care of the little Banty hens and my big rooster takes care of the big hens. They've kind of divided it up, so we get along very well here.

We have very spoiled chickens. We just had, they love cheese, so we just had our cheese. We feed them melon every morning. They have them, in their chicken house, they have pellets and mash and scratch corn all the time. Outside we give them snacks. They're very, very spoiled.