I never had any thoughts about raising chickens and becoming a chicken mama. I was not drawn to chickens and they were not what I thought of when I thought of something cute. When my husband talked to me about getting chickens, I was less than thrilled with the idea. However, my whole life changed the day a stray chicken wandered into my yard.
One day my husband was talking over the fence with our neighbor when the neighbor noticed we had a chicken in the yard. It was a small black chicken just hanging around and making herself at home. We did not know of anyone around us with chickens so we had no idea where she came from before coming to us. My husband just let her be and didn’t try to chase her off or anything. I had nothing to do with her.
She made herself at home from the beginning.
Another day when I was out, I received a text from my husband with a photograph of the chicken. He said he was bonding with the chicken. The next thing I know I walk out in the yard one day and noticed my husband had bought a rabbit hutch for the small chicken. I was definitely not happy that he did all that behind my back. He transformed the hutch into a chicken coop and named the hen Buster. I tried at least to get him to go with Bustess, but I lost that battle.
Our first coop was a rabbit hutch that my husband converted into a coop.
Then we end up buying another hen to keep Buster company, and we were officially chicken parents. In the beginning, my husband was the primary caretaker of the chickens. My maternal instinct didn’t really kick in until little Buster went broody. We were very unprepared for this, and my husband had zero patience for her bad attitude and lack of eggs.
He threatened to send her to the slow cooker, but this did not sit well with me. He would call her Crock-Pot Buster. I took over and did what I could to try to break her. I was now her protector and a bond was forming. In the beginning, I didn’t really think of her as cute, but now I think she is totally cute. Eventually her broodiness was broken and after a long break, we were able to enjoy her cute little eggs again. When that happened, my husband liked her again. Their relationship has been a complicated one.
I think Buster has a good life.
Now I am totally on the chicken bandwagon. I think they are cute and entertaining. I follow other people with chickens on Facebook and share my adventures too. I am drawn to all things chicken. Little Buster won me over and I love her. She gave me a love of all chickens.
I spend a lot of quality time with my girls and I am very protective of them. I have always been a night owl who likes to sleep in late, but now I am up with the chickens. My whole life changed because of a sassy stray chicken that wandered into my yard.
