Can you pet chickens?

[Advnt05]

It is funny referring to Napoleon like that. You can probably do that through a variety of situations. I tell my wife all the time to "fix your own quesedilla".

[Patricia]

Ahh! I was doing a search for something else and the chicken thread popped up.

This has to be one of the funnier icot threads.

[tyandskyesmom]

Skye (my 3 year old) absolutely loves Chickens...they can do no wrong! She has three idential stuffed chicks...ChiChi, ChaCha, and ChoCho. Well they're identical except for ChiChi whi is the oldest (she got him when she was one) who has seen a lot of lovin'! She also has a whhite blanket with ducks on it which when she was a baby she insisted were chickens so it's name is ChiChi Beese (don't ask!) and she has every book she can find about chickens. She would sit at the zoo in the petting area waiting for a chicken to want to be pet...I mean anyone could pet a goat! Her eyes light up at the sight of a chicken...on TV, a real one, a cartoon one, a stuffed animal one...you name it, she loves it!

I better keep her away from this scary chicken thread!!!

[conorsmom2000]

This was, without a doubt, one of the funniest threads I've ever read here!

It don't believe I've ever had the opportunity to even consider petting a chicken. I do randomly get the brilliant idea to go to the pond in town and feed the ducks. It usually takes about 5 minutes before we are over run with ducks and huge geese and I'm freaking out. Our last venture ended with with me yelling "abort!", Con losing his ice cream cone to them and all of us running for the car.

Next spring it will probably seem like a good idea again....

[disneynarula]

I still have a lot of residual chicken fear from my childhood. My mom would make me gather the eggs and the hens did not give them up willingly. I had to use my Romper Room hat to push the hen into th corner of the nest so I could take the egg. Got pecked plenty!!

OMG this is so funny. This is the funniest post ever.

[Advnt05]

I can't believe this thread was revived. I can add to the Chicken story now as there is now a Rooster involved. There is an abandoned chicken house where I mountain bike. I guess they got everyone out except this escaped Rooster. He walks around the State Park and eats bugs and sings. Last week, he came up to my car and followed me around the car. I think he figured out he can eat dead bugs off the fronts of vehicles. He's pretty enough to pet but I don't dare try. Roosters have a little ruffian in them. They'll get you when you're not looking.

[PirateLover]

He walks around the State Park and eats bugs and sings.

LOL! I just got a picture of the rooster from Robin Hood... "Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally Golly, what a day!"

[TheDuckRocks]

LOL! I just got a picture of the rooster from Robin Hood... "Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally Golly, what a day!"

LOL It's back!
Did I ever tell you about the time when my kids were little and I told them I was never a baby like other people, but was a chick that my mother (who was a witch) turned into a little girl?
My middle kid Todd, believed it for years. The icing on the cake was when Halloween rolled around unknowingly my mom hung this huge witch poster on her front door. Sealed the deal.

[Patricia]

So.. on the chicken front, it appears more and more chickens will be free to terrorize children right in their very own backyards. Here in some British Columbia municipalities, they are starting to allow people to raise chickens in their own backyards.

This month, Vancouver city council voted unanimously to change city bylaws to legalize the keeping of urban hens.

They are calling them urban hens? We all know a chicken by any other name.. is still a terror.

I'll have to keep a close eye on my neighbors if this comes to Kelowna.

[Hull-onian]

I love this thread, I never thought about chickens really. Only Perdue chickens, the kind you get in the supermarket.

[Mickey'sGirl]

My cousin had a pet chicken who would toboggan with us in the winter. Honestly. It was weird.

[offwego]

My cousin had a pet chicken who would toboggan with us in the winter. Honestly. It was weird.

It was weird as opposed to say frequently found on tobboggans everywhere?

Thanks to whoever revived it..couldn't remember the name of Shawville and it kept coming up this month.
Detroit altered their bylaws as well to allow chicken keeping in urban areas. I thought my doggie was work!

[Tinkerfreak]

Okay, so we are sounding worse and worse here in the South...

Did you know that you can rock a chicken to sleep?

My in-laws have always had farm animals on their 120 acres down the road from us (Don't even get me started on the minature horse that they put in their laundry room during Hurricane Ivan last year... you know, cause he would've blown away [img]graemlins/shakehead.gif[/img] ).

Anyways, so DH used to take me in the chicken/pig yard and pick up the chickens. He would lay them on their backs in one hand, tuck their head beneath their wing, and pet their chest with the other hand. And very slowly, he would rock them in a circle. Sure enough, it puts them in some sort of trance as long as they are moving. And if you do it long enough, you can actually put them down and walk away... and they stay curled up in a ball asleep. [img]graemlins/sleepin.gif[/img]

I swear to the Lord that I have seen this done...DH's good!

Is he kind of like the chicken whisperer

[jrkcr]

I grew up on a farm in South Carolina. It was my job every morning (age 5) to go collect the eggs and feed the chickens. We had Rhode Island Reds. The hens were so sweet and I could pet them and carry them around. But the two roosters... they would RUN after me and try to jump on my legs with their talons!! Like tag-team wrestlers!!
I carried a metal feed bucket(an old paint can) and after overcoming the initial fear and impulse to run, I found it very fun to WHACK the roosters with the feed bucket, and knock them out cold!!! My mom taught me that trick. Thirty years later, and I can still hear the sound of the paint can. After a few times of me whacking them, they left me alone.

We plan to move this summer, and if we are in a non-populated place, we plan to have chickens. But no roosters!

[beksy]

Last time I went home for a visit I found out that we have TWO CHICKENS IN OUR YARD! There aren't any neighbors with chickens or anything but one chicken appears regularly and sometimes brings her friend. They like to eat the food under the bird feeders. Before these I never had a problem with chickens, but I'm pretty sure that with these chickens their eyes start glowing red when I'm spotted! Then they "innocently" walk toward me and follow me to the house where I can make my escape. I think that these are probably twice the size of your nomal chicken and enjoy eating humans when the bird seed runs low. My parents don't seem to believe me. Of course, these chickens appear out of the bushes and trees when my family isn't around to try to carry through their evil plot. Apparently they are also very smart and sneaky.

[Advnt05]

With the increase in organic farming, there are now classes in the city of Atlanta on how you can raise your own chickens. I imagine some day, you'll be able to walk a chicken on a leash anywhere you go. The exciting part will be that you may get an egg at anytime and would get a snack as you did your walk.

Can a chicken lay an egg if there is no rooster? If so, can you still eat it?

[scrappy]

Can a chicken lay an egg if there is no rooster? If so, can you still eat it?

Yes, chickens lay eggs no matter what. If there's a rooster around then the eggs may be fertilized. I think it's preferable to eat eggs that aren't fertilized.

FYI, I live in a very rural town and can't believe that our town ordinances do not allow for chickens when I'm learning that cities and towns everywhere do allow them. My husband and I really want to raise a few as pets and for the eggs, along with a small vegetable garden. I think it's time to have a meeting with the city council...

[garymacd]

[QUOTE=Munch;468098Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg? [/QUOTE]

The Egg came first. At the risk of inflaming a lot of people, the original chicken that we know today had to come from somewhere. It came from an egg from a bird that was not a chicken as we know it today. The bird in the egg was a mutation that was more successful than the bird it came from.

In answer to "Can a chicken lay an egg without a rooster around?", yes they can and do. Egg laying chickens lay roughly one egg a day for about a year before they are "layed out". Egg farmers usually have about 15000 chickens in one barn and only one rooster. He stays in the same barn as the hens, but can't get at them. Egg farmers want eggs, not chicks. His only job is to keep the hens calm - believe it or not.

You can eat fertilised eggs, but you have to be quick. Fertilised eggs have a gestation period of about 21 days and the chick starts to form very quickly after laying. You can always refrigerate the egg, which will stop gestation.

[Advnt05]

I could make so many jokes about needing to have a rooster around to keep the hens calm but I won't go there.

Here is another question for you then. If a hen usually only lays for a year, what is the life expectancy of a hen? If I don't eat her for dinner, how long will she be a "dependent" before naturally kicking the bucket?

[Stitchahula]

I have to admit that I have never thought of petting a chicken. My neighbor's had a farm when I was growing up. They had chickens and a rooster all I knew was you stayed far away from the rooster he was mean. I stayed with the horses, cows and sheep if I wanted to pet something.