It’s been almost four years since I first got chickens. I’ve learned much since then, many lessons that only come with experience. Just like with most anything in life, there’s ups and downs – which I found out first hand!
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Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
Loved your story. I had chickens for years. Between raccoons, hawks and coyotes they managed to get them all. My daughter-in-law lives down the hill. She has lots of chickens and two roosters that get along. I can hear the roosters crowing in the morning and I get free eggs. Couldn’t get better than that.
Hi! Yes, we, too, have to watch the raccoons, hawks, fisher cats, and other wild life. We don’t leave the girls to “free range” unless we are outside with them, and we bring my daughter’s pet bunny in at night. I do miss his crowing. Enjoy those eggs! Thanks for commenting! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Dear Nicole, very happy you shared your story. We had a rooster that our grandson hatched out of an incubator, on his birthday when he was in the second grade. He named him snowball, because he was white, but as he got older he had some golden feathers. He died of old age.
I decided the hens needed a rooster to help protect them. There was a freebie rooster that came up because these people had gotten a few chicks, and when they were big enough to realize one was a roo they didn’t want to keep it. So I contacted them and went to check out what they needed a home for. He was the most stunning , gorgeous barred rock rooster. I told them I’d take him off their hands. They were thrilled he wouldn’t be eaten.
He was so rough on my hens…they suffered for a month as I gave him time to settle in. I just couldn’t watch anymore, he needed to go. (Beauty isn’t everything!) Now it’s been 6 months no rooster. They are just fine.
Enjoy these wonderful birds! Binky, of Petaluma
Hi Binky, Thank YOU for sharing your story. Spot was the hatchling my daughter had picked out as well, and it broke her heart when he became a rooster. He scared her early on. My girls are so much better off now, and happy. I love that you did have a rooster, Snowball, who died of old age. I wonder if some breeds are more aggressive and others less so? There is a “living museum” in Massachusetts that has the sweetest, most docile rooster. He is much, much smaller than my roo was. I saw another kind of thing when I visited Texas this spring; again it was a different breed. Thanks again for commenting. Enjoy your girls, too! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Nicole, so sorry you had to get rid of your rooster and that he had turned so mean. I wonder why they do? I don’t have nor will I ever have a rooster in my hen house. No Men Allowed! My hens love me as if I was their ‘rooster’ as they gather close around my feet when I go in the pen. They cluck and coo and talk back and forth. I love my hens. Some don’t lay eggs any more – too old probably as I have had them for over a year and they were over a year old when I got them. Golden Comets and they are so calm and gentle hens. This fall I hope to get some new younger ones that will lay more eggs as I have neighbors who rely on me for fresh brown eggs. Your hens look wonderful. I hope you have a better year now that you have some new ones and no ‘rooster’. I have never witnessed a rooster that does what your rooster did and hope never to see it. When my son was small a rooster attacked him and I have never trusted roosters since then. Maybe it is because they train them for fighting and that ‘gene’ is passed down? Who knows? Happy days ahead for your ladies.
Hi Sandi, My girls today did exactly what you spoke about…they all gathered around me and just warmed my heart! One even popped into the coop when I was cleaning it as if to say, “Hi Mama”. I just love them. I wish I had gotten rid of Spot earlier, before I lost my sweet girls. They did not deserve that fate. My rooster was always treated well – but he spooked me and got control. I did not realize just how much stress he was causing me physically until he’s been gone. Thanks for commenting! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
P.S. I have a rooster statue I keep in the chicken pen.
Love it! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Hi Nicole. I’ve had mean roosters and there’s just no changing their nature! They become dangerous and have to be destroyed, sadly. I’m now in an apartment (senior) but I hope to be able to have chickens again some day. I miss my “girls” as my grandmother would call them. There’s just something peaceful about the sounds they make!
Hi Linda, thank you. I’m glad it wasn’t “me”. My “girls” are so happy, and peaceful, and they are making clucks and purrs. They are just so darn sweet. I hope you get to have chickens again, too. Thanks for commenting! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Nicole, I feel your pain. I just went through the same thing. I had 8 chickens, 7 hens and 1 turned out to be a rooster, he was a Dominique, and he was beautiful, like yours grew up to be huge with huge spurs. All of a sudden he started charging me, and it got to where I couldnt go in the run and when I would open the gate to let them out to free range (about an acre fenced off, just for them) He would try to attack me while I was fixing the gate to stay shut. ughh…I too did not want to kill him as everyone kept suggesting, but I also caught him mistreating my hens as well, and twice a hawk got a hen while he was out there with them, (so he wasnt doing his job). Finally a friend from church knew someone who had hundreds of chickens and would come get him and let him live his life out with them. (his wife would not let him kill her chickens either so they just lived there till they died. :). I was happy to find him a good home. That man just went right in that pen and captured him like it wasnt nothing…glad it was him and not me. 🙂 I know your girls are peaceful and happy now.
Hi Vivian, Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. That is exactly how it was with Spot. I don’t know for sure that Spot was kept or killed, but I guess I don’t want to know. I hope he is free ranging and being put in his place so he behaves better. I love my “little chickie girls” so much. I just feel so awful that I did not get rid of him before he got to my little chicken, Nugget. She used to love to climb up to get me to hold her, and she’d lay her head on my shoulder and sometimes fall asleep. I had no idea at that point that he was hurting them, though. Anyway, lessen learned. The flock now is happy and peaceful. Much love to you. Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Your story rings so true me and I’m very sorry you had the experience but, in my humble opinion, you did the best for all. Your new ones are lucky to have the older girls and y’all in there lives. Hope your change will lessen soon. God bless.
Hi Joan, You’re right. I would’ve never forgiven myself had the rooster hurt my husband or someone else, and it used to peck at my dog’g when they would go near the coop. It’s just one of those things, I guess. It’s all good now. I am thankful for the farmer/feed store that will take in the roosters. Otherwise, it could have been even more difficult. Thanks for commenting! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Sorry you had to get rid of your rooster. At least the hens are at peace now and do not have to worry.
Marilyn
Hi Marilyn, You are so right! Now I notice even my two timid hens are friendly and no longer timid. They are less stressed, and so am I. It was the right thing to do. Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Nicole, that’s a bummer about your rooster. I’m sorry to hear he turned mean and needed to find a new home. It’s always hard to see animals go. I agree with you on them still being pets. My husband grew up on a farm so he doesn’t understand. He probably would have just cooked him. There is no way I could have. One day I hope to have chickens and I don’t plan on having a rooster. It will be so much fun for my boys to experience. I hope all your chickens, new and old, are doing good.
Hi Krista, thank you. It was hard for me to let him go, but in the long run, it’s better for the girls and me. This morning, they were all huddled around me. Now they run up to see me whenever I approach, as opposed to huddling away from the rooster. It was hard since in the beginning he was good with the girls. If I had small children, he would have been especially dangerous! Hens are so docile and sweet – your boys will love them! Have fun! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
Pictures are so cute and happy your chickens are happy now. Coop is very nice. Love you,
Mother
Thank you, Momma. Love you too! XOXO Nicole
I’m so sorry you had to go through that with your flock, Nicole. It’s traumatic for the flock and the flock keepers too! We experienced exactly the same thing with our flock several years ago. We accidentally ended up with two roo’s in a batch of new chicks ( our second flock I believe) and decided to gamble on keeping them to see what would happen. All was well in the beginning until one of the roosters became the alpha an wouldn’t leave the poor hens alone. He even quarantined two off in the coop an wouldn’t let them out at all in the run and when I went in the run he was aggressive. The hens were stressed and so were we. I thought I was a tougher farmgirl than I really am and had both of the roosters butchered thinking we would eat them. I lacked the guts to ever cook them. They sat in my freeze for a year and I finally disposed of them in the trash.
I’m happy to know that the new little flock is happy with the older girls and peace has been restored in your hen house!
A hard life-lesson for sure. Thanks for sharing your story.
Blessings!
Deb
Hi Deb! Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. It makes me feel better knowing I did everything I could and that there was nothing that could keep the roo from being the way he was. I couldn’t have cooked those roosters (or mine) either!
Now it’s been a few weeks and the girls are so happy! They all come running when they see me to see what “treats” I have in store for them. My only regret is not listening to those who told me earlier on to get rid of the rooster. I miss my little hen, Nugget! Lesson learned. Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
I also had to get rid of my rooster, Weave. He did all the same things as yours. It felt terrible and I was sad for a while, but I am a country girl and I knew these kind of things happen. I became a city girl at 17 and moved away to go to college and then to Chicago from the deep country in Texas. I am back now and have chickens and my own herb nursery. I love your blogs. This article made me feel better as one day Weave hurt me really bad when I went to gather eggs. We sold him to a man that needed a rooster and could handle him. He was very beautiful like yours. I was raised country so I knew about these sort of things and knew I could handle it. Thank you for your time writing us!! For some reason your blogs made life better and easier for us!!!
Hi Jamie, Hello, fellow native Texan! Thank you so much for this comment, Jamie. You have made ME feel better. The last few weeks I have had to get used to the “quiet”, without the clucks and crows that Spot would do- sounds the hens don’t make. But I have also gotten used to the “peace”, being able to go into my coop without fear and my girls are happy and laying eggs. The new girls have personalities, and I am able to spoil them and hold them. I still get a twinge of sadness now and then, especially when I hear my neighbor’s rooster crowing. Our roosters used to “talk” to each other. In the long run, it was the right thing to do before I or someone else got really hurt. Thank you for reading and sharing with me. Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole
I really enjoyed your story. I look forward to the day when I can have chickens again. And now that I’m retired, I’ll have more time to enjoy them and get to know their personalities like you do with yours. Too bad they don’t have some neutering program for roosters – maybe it would make them more docile. But then, I guess they wouldn’t protect the flock? Hmmm….
Hi Kimmy. Now that we don’t have the rooster, the girls are so docile and sweet. One almost trips me everytime I go near her as she wants me to pet her! I still get sad over my rooster, but he could have really injured me. Good luck with your new flock when you get it! Farmgirl Hugs, Nicole