Ryan and Mom with Pip and Penny

How I Started Raising Chickens

Growing food is a passion of mine.

blueberries, strawberries, vegetables, raspberries

I also love birds.  As a child, I actually asked for bird food for Christmas.  (Yeah, I’m that weird).  So what better way to combine the two than backyard chickens? 

Unfortunately, my husband does not share the same passion for either one of those things, and when I broached the subject of raising chickens, he used one word that stopped me in my tracks:  Never.  As in, we will never get chickens.   

no chickens

Not wanting to create marital strife, I accepted the fact that I’d probably always buy eggs from the store.

And then our son watched chicken eggs hatch in his second-grade classroom. 

two baby chicks
Image by Lolame from Pixabay

Little Ryan was beyond smitten. When his teacher offered that any of the students could take the chicks home to raise, he just knew it had to be him.  He was literally in pain with longing for the chicks. (Nine years later, he’s still longing for chicks…just a different kind.) I had no problem with the idea, but I told him to go ask his dad, expecting a firm “No way.”  WELLL….apparently, my husband is a soft touch for kids.  I couldn’t believe it, but we soon had Pip and Penny, and my little boy was in heaven. 

Ryan with his chicks, Pip and Penny

Of course, if you have two, you might as well have six, right?  So we went and bought four more. 

Years later, my husband told me something I never knew. He had thought that it was required that Ryan take the chicks for a school project.  He literally thought that all of the 2nd graders were getting them!  Oops!  And that is how it all started. If it weren’t for a silly misunderstanding, there would never have been Revolutionary Chicken.

I like to think it was fate.