Ellie May's 4H Poultry Story: Part I

Most people think of chickens as a tasty main dish, dogs think of chickens as chew toys, but I think of Chickens as beautiful creatures and there aren't many things I would rather do than spend a day in my coop.  Hi, I am Ellie May, and I live on a six acre homestead with my mother, father, seven year old monkey...uh...I mean brother, and 54 assorted animals.

My love for poultry began when I got my first chickens back in 2005.  My favorite was Polly, who would jump on my shoulder every chance he got.  I've loved birds ever since.  A couple of years later, I was given a chicken named Adam to care for.  His back had been chewed off by dogs, but I doctored him and today you would never know he had been injured.  I was really interested in learning more about how to care for my chickens and Mom told me that she had learned a lot about raising and showing animals when she was in 4H.  That's when I began my 4H career.  Since then I have been in the cooking club, horse club, livestock show, livestock judging team, and more. 

My first year in 4H was very exciting.  I joined the horse club and learned a lot about horses and their mentality, but my favorite part was raising animals for the livestock show.  I chose to raise chickens and a goat.  Everything was fine until about two weeks before the show, when a big storm blew the door off of my chicken coop and our dogs got in and ate all but one of my 4H chickens!!  I named her Reba, because she's a survivor.   (Reba is the only chicken we have ever taken to the vet.  After the fiasco we doctored Reba's wounds, but Staci wasn't satisfied, insisting that we take that baby's last remaining chicken to the vet, and when i didn't, she made the appointment, and had the bill put on her tab.)  The night before the show, I gave Reba a bath and a blow dry.  When I carried her in to the arena, the lights made her plumage glow.  Since I only had one chicken, I was disqualified, but learned so much about showing animals that I felt like a real winner!

I liked raising my goat so much that I joined the livestock judging team so that I could learn more about what a good goat looked like.  I studied hard and learned many things that I had never known about market steers, heifers, hogs and more.  My team went to district contest in Paris, where we took fourth place in intermediate judging and I took forth place individual.

Shortly after I joined 4H, my dad and I built and incubator out of an old ice chest and hatched 9 out of 12 eggs!  One chick named Zeus was nearly too weak to live, so we forced food and water down his throat.  He didn't like it at first, but would soon open his mouth and chirp when he saw me.  Zeus wasn't very smart though.  If he was a human he would probably try to steal a car with an alarm parked across the street from a police station.  He got eaten by a dog, later.  Not long after Zeus died, one of our hens named Holly got a huge, deep wound and would die if I didn't save her!  I rinsed the wound out with clorhexadine, then put Underwood's Horse Medicine and baking powder on the cut and bandaged her with alligator skin.  After a while Holly was all better!!  Holly is still alive.  Saving Zeus and Holly got me interested in veterinary science.

When my birthday came around, Mom and Dad asked me what i wanted and I said that I wanted chickens.  It was hard choosing the breeds, but I soon decided on Americanas, Black Crested White Polish, and Buff Silkies.  I couldn't wait for the call from the Post office to tell me they were here!!  When they arrived, one of the chicks had a crooked beak, and appeared very weak.  I gave him crickets, (home grown, btw, i didn't know she was growing them until she had a simultaneous hatching and escape--there were HUNDREDS of crickets in every nook and cranny of the house...but that is a story for another day) pecans, Rooster Booster, and B complex.  I named the chick Angular Angus, and it soon showed improvement.  Angus turned out to be a hen, and needed a lot of attention, because of her beak.  I took a toothpick and scraped out any food and dirt that got stuck in her beak once every day.  Because I handled her so much Angus soon got very friendly, and began to come when I called.  Angus had become the best chicken I had ever had.  Since Angus had a bad beak she could only eat chick starter.  Dad had found an old tub to put Angus's feed in.  That made Angus happy.  But soon enough all the feed made Angus fat.  Too fat.  She needed a lot of exercise.  I found a choke leash that I could put under her breast, under her wings, and over her neck.  Every day I would take Angus for three laps around the chicken yard and one lap around the goat pen.  I also started buying her feed with less fat.  Angus soon started to walk like a chicken as opposed to waddling like a duck.  She was losing weight, but she was still a little too fat.  One day I had an idea for an exercise to make Angus work her wings and back.  I laid Angus upside down on top of my head.  The I said "roll over, Angus" and tilted my head a little to make her roll off.  In doing this i trained her to roll off my head on command.  Once Angus got the hang of what I called "chicken hat trick," it became part of our daily routine.  After a while Angus was no longer a chunky chicken.


Next time on Ellie May's 4H Poultry Story:  Suturing a hen's wound.