Prize Winning, Pea Gobbling Chickens, and the Girl With a Good Heart

"Egg" - one of Will's girls!
I had to share this with you all.  My six-year-old son's chickens are pretty fabulous.  He wanted to enter them in the County Fair this year, he is so proud of his girls.  These are chickens that he has raised himself since they were chicks.  He has fed them, watered them, drug them around the backyard, given them bike rides and wagon rides; he absolutely adores his girls.  These are the same girls that ate my peas this spring and forced me to replant in between thoughts of chicken soup and fried chicken.

My chicken whisperer
We call Will (my son) our "chicken whisperer".  He can calm any chicken, pick up the buff orpington rooster that is as big as he is, and all of the chickens follow him.  They love him.  We have a blind chicken named Helen that Will has taken great care with.  He holds her and checks on her.  He is always teaching all of his little friends how to hold chickens and is often rambling off numerous chicken facts to them.  

"Fluffy" in Will's arms
We also recently acquired a chick that has hip dysplasia.  Her left leg simply doesn't work.  She is like a peg-leg chicken, in fact, Will has named her Captain Jackie after his favorite pirate.  After a long discussion of the chicken's prognosis, the future looked grim for this little Rhodie, everything that I have read says that you have to kill these chickens because they just can't survive on one leg.  Will looked up at his dad and said, "but she has a good heart".  GULP!!!  What do you say to that?  We brought Capt. Jackie home and she now spends her days on little backyard field trips with Will.  A trip to the sandbox to play construction, up to the crow's nest in the pirate fort to watch for little brother pirate attacks, down the slide in Will's lap, a ride in a wagon and little breaks to the coop for food and water.  She "peeps" for Will, and he picks her up and loves her.  I have to say that she is doing very well and Will has really proven what a marvelous boy he is.  He has a good heart!!!

2,500 pounds of organic feed that the chickens recently purchased themselves.
They earned every penny!  My chicken ranchers are pretty pleased with the pile!
Back to the pea assassin chickens and the fair...  After the judging, we went to check on our girls.  Imagine how surprised we were to find that Will's Black Sex Link, Lizzie, had won Best of Show!!!  The other two girls that he entered, Egg (an Araucana) and Jane (a Silver Laced Wyandotte), both took home a blue ribbon.  The look on Will's face was worth every minute that I have spent teaching him, watching him, and helping him with these chickens.  His face was pure delight.  Now, in his room hangs a giant red, white, and blue ribbon to remind him that his hard work does pay off and that life is better when you have a good heart.  




Comments

  1. AnnekeSeptember 16, 2011 at 7:23 PM

    I'm laughing so hard at the name Helen. Just struck me funny. I loved reading about your boy and his chickens. So fun!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 29, 2012 at 9:21 AM

    How adorable! It's so sweet of him to take care of injured birds.

    ReplyDelete

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