First Annual Hen House Hop

Dear friends,
Welcome to the first annual Hen House Hop!
Here's where chicken keepers get to share your best photos, stories, recipes, tips and most memorable moments about keeping chickens. If you're still on the chicken keeping fence, I'll just bet by the end of this hop, you'll be ready to hook up with the rest of us on our chicken keeping adventures! Here we go!

This is a tell all Hen Party girls!

                        " Party Guidelines "

These guidelines are just to get your story tellin' juices going; tell all you want to about your Chicken Keeping adventures!

1.Write a story about how you got started keeping chicken's.

                                 2. Introduce us to all of your " girls " and tell us what breed they are and why you like them.

                              3. Do you have a favorite chicken in your flock? How many do you keep? Who rules the roost? Have you inspired others to keep chicken's?

                                4. Show us lots and lots of pictures of your Hen House, ( and girls ) inside and out ( through all seasons ) and tell us how it was made or where you bought it.

5.We also want to know if you spoil your " girls " and how!

                                6. We'll get hungry on the hop, so bring your favorite egg dish and share the recipe if you like.

Let's get cluckin' and scratchin'!

The Little Red Hen House ~ Fall 2011

Our backyard chicken adventures began six years or so ago when our daughter ( then 8 ) fell in love with a batch of baby chicks at a friends house and the rest is history. We knew nothing about keeping chickens when we started out, but in true homeschooling fashion we followed the " chicken " rabbit trail all the way to the library, Internet, and eventually to our local feed store where we placed an order for eight laying hens!

From there we researched the many options for Hen Houses. It was my talented husbands idea to create one from scratch using left over materials and a re-claimed window. He did a wonderful job making a safe and comfortable home for our girls and I've had more fun fixin' it up inside and out!

Spring make over 2011

I love gardening so it's been a wonderful creative outlet for me to plan and plant around the Hen House making it look and feel as if it's always been there. I love watching the garden grow up around it and changing the decorating scheme as the seasons change.

Early Spring 2011

Summer Hollyhocks 2011

Spring 2006

The photo above was taken just after my husband finished building the Hen House for The Cottage Hens.We tucked it into the rear of the yard near the shed for easy access to tools and so the girls could have a run with at least one side shielded from the weather. I painted it a soft yellow with green trim and then painted our small shed to match. The white paint line in the grass outlines what is now our bird and butterfly garden. At the time, I was just thrilled to have proper housing for the girls. I thought it was " farmy " enough but I was out shopping one day and noticed a shed painted Barn Red! You know what I did next don't you!

Summer 2011

Summer vistor 2010

We wanted to experiment with several different breeds so we took the " chicken mans " advice from the feed store ( he raises them ) and ordered two Americaunas, two Buff Orpingtons, two Rhode Island Reds, two Barred Rocks, and two Golden Laced Wyandottes. We still have three of the original eight left and this past spring we added 10 more to the mix. Some of you will recall that two of them ended up being Roosters.

Rodeo

Rudy Roo

So far, the Americaunas and Wyandottes have proven to be very hardy and they are consistent layers.

The key factor being that can they stand the long cold winters here in New England. They stay nice and snug inside during the coldest parts of winter. They don't like snow in their run. So, we shovel them out right along with the driveway and the sidewalk after snowstorms! 

Winter 2010

 

Corgis get along great with chickens. As you can see, all Max cares about when he's in the run is what he can eat!
Let me introduce you to " our girls " The Cottage Hens.

Aren't they adorable ?

 Head Hen Lacy Lou

Lacy Lou rules the roost! She also knows her name and comes running when called! I admit, she is my favorite from our first flock. Shhhh don't tell the other girls! I don't want to ruffle any feathers!

Liza  (after Liza Minellie )

Gladys

Stevie the REBEL CHICK and first chicken to have her wings clipped!

Lucy

Chestnut

Hazel

Penelope

Goldie

Keeping backyard chickens has been such a fun and rewarding experience. Once you have your set up ready and your chicks out of the heat lamp stage they are easy keepers.  All they really need to survive is a clean coop, room to run, fresh food and water daily.  But if you want your girls to be a part of your family they make wonderful pets and are great company in the garden too!We feed our girls organic egg layer pellets and spoil them with plenty of fresh kitchen scraps and affection. I love my daily visits with " the girls" they always have a story to tell. Like this one!

Chickens give us so much more just fresh eggs.  They inspire creativity and are often the gateway to delving deeper into a rich and satisfying homesteading lifestyle. They give us food for our garden's, hours upon hours of good, clean family entertainment and yes, LOVE!

Max our Corgi

We can't wait to meet your flock and learn about your adventures with chickens too!

This Linky party will be open until December 21st!  Let's see how many entries we can get!

  Please grab the Hen House Hop BUTTON from my sidebar, add it to your side bar then link it to this post so we can share this Hen House Hop with more chicken loving bloggers! Or simply grab the code below where it says Get the Code here at the bottom of the entries and paste it into your post!


Check out  more great coops at Tilly's Nest Share your Coop  tour!