Chickens in the garden, Flea Market style

Chickens in the backyard

Now, since the backyard hen house is the new dog house, Flea Market Gardeners have all kinds of chickens in their gardens, and some are real!  We are collectors and chicken ore s very close to the farm implements that we love so much,…the small garden buildings, the galvanized metal containers, animal figures and real cute animals!

 

 

Lori Gearheart   “My Hen House!  We have a five year old girl and an eight year old boy that keep the hens hopping! They’re always being carried around!  Our neighbors gave us the shed when they were going to build a new one. We removed a fence panel and rolled it over on top… of poles. We set it in place, fenced off an area for the hens to roam and put in a little ‘Pop Door’. My husband built the shelves for them to roost in and quartered off a section of the barn for their food and our mower & some garden tools. We love it!”

Note: A “pop door” is an automated chicken coop door that you can program to close and open at specific times in order to protect your chickens from predators.

 

Tammy Beer  “This is our chicken house so far all we need to do is the stoop inside the fence and a shutters on window with stars.”

 

Kelly Dickinson  “I painted this ‘chicken chest”….perfect for a country porch!  The feet are Mason jars that have straw and an egg in them!  The drawers feature canning jar labels under each knob. …and the little white hen is holding her prize-winning jar of ‘ pickled eggs!’ Thanks for letting me share!”

 

 

Sherri Calvert  “My granddaughter with one of her 28 chickens. She loves them and gets to bank the money they get from selling those wonderful, fresh eggs.”

 

Wanda Bailey  “Here’s a picture of my chicken coop. It sure is fun to decorate…and the eggs aren’t bad either!”

 

Terri Kemp   “My wonderful husband, Stan Kemp, transformed this old swing-set into the coolest chicken coop!  I love my man!”

Fun Facts about Chickens!

• Chickens are members of the pheasant family that is native to Asia
• There are 25 billion chickens in the world
• There are dozens of chicken breeds, such as the Dutch bantam, leghorn and Rhode Island red.
• Baby chickens are chicks. Female chickens are pullets until they’re old enough to lay eggs and become hens. Male chickens are called roosters, cocks or cockerels, depending on the country you’re in
• Scientists think that the rooster’s wattle–the dangly bit beneath his beak–helps him to gain a hen’s attention
• The chicken was the first bird to have its genome sequenced

*Smithsonian

 

If you have a small chicken feeder and a chicken figurine,…you’re all set!

 

 Kaycee Sterling  “Here are a few of my real chickens!  They are new and we got them from a place that had a lot of roosters so they were missing some feathers for awhile.  They even gave us the little bantam rooster for free to get rid of some of their roosters.  They finally figured out they are free range and they no longer spend every second in the coop.”

 

 

 Rachel Schultz  “This is my chicken/hen house…and a chicken I bought at an auction. My sister in law found it for me on some property they had…part of it was damaged, so my husband cut off the bad parts and made the perchs out of scrap wood”

 

 

Five crazy things that happen when you begin raising chickens

1. You’re terrified that you’ll kill them
2. You JUST want to watch them
3. You begin to think they’re human
4. Hens sometimes turn into roosters
5. If you love chickens so much, why not goats!

Thanks to Marias’s Farm

Dreama Bender  “Me and my girls …they really don’t attack anything but food, bugs, worms, snacks. The sign’s there to keep the neighborhood kids from going in and opening the gate and letting them out .. I’m just a country girl, who likes her pets and doing yard work .. I’m like my dad, I have to be doing something all the time.”

 

The Little Shop Antiques and Gardens  “This is my chicken coop. My husband and I made it out of salvage. The cupola on top is for ventilation. My birds are free range so this is mostly for roosting and laying.”

 

Kathleen Switzer  “This is my nakedneck frizzled silkie, we call her Phyllis Diller”

 

Janie Perry  “This is our Kluckingham Palace.  This is my free range rooster. I have a rooster that occupies Kluckingham Palace currently and all the ladies seem fine with him….my free ranging rooster thinks he’s one of the dogs.”

 

Jacki Cammidge from Blue Fox Farm  “I’ve had a lot of fun lately putting together some of my eclectic mix of rustic stuff; this little shed was built originally as a chicken house, but has since evolved into more of a museum for all things bird-o-bilia – if it’s anything to do with birds, bring it on!”

 

Resources

How much does it cost to raise backyard chickens?   Backyard Chickens