By Olivia Fladung –

8-18 Media Reporters

special to the Journal

My family and I had 27 chickens and we also had 4 ducks, but sadly our duck Taffy died recently.

Some of our chickens have names and some don’t…but the ones who do have names are Atilla, Black Beauty, and then we named one of our chickens Crocidilla, mistakenly thinking that it was a girl but then we later found out that it was a boy so then we quickly changed it to Crocidillo.

The other chickens’ names are Chickilata, Lady, and Darth Vader, but sadly Darth Vader died as well. Our ducks have interesting names too. They are named Daffy, Aretha, and Licorice.

It is very fun to take care of them but it also is a lot of work. We clean the coop’s walls, we give them their vitamins and we give them their water and food. When it’s colder out, chickens normally don’t lay as many eggs, so it’s definitely busier collecting the eggs once it’s warmer than when it’s colder.

In the winter my chickens get very cold, so they are not out in their run as much as in the summertime. They don’t really need sweaters but our neighbor is making them sweaters in all of the colors of the rainbow, so that they won’t be as cold. I am excited to see what they will look like.

During springtime leading to summer, we are collecting more and more eggs. When it’s my turn to collect the eggs I grab the egg basket, and head off to the coop.

When I collect the eggs I just use my bare hands. I found out that whatever color your chicken’s ear is colored, that is what color egg they will lay, so it is really cool to go in my coop and see all of the cool different colored eggs scattered all around the coop. My chicken, Black Beauty, is the one who lays the purple eggs, but there are many different shades of all sorts of colors like light and dark brown, green, and white. Sometimes the chickens try to peck at me because they think that I am trying to hurt them, but most of the time they don’t and when I come in I will shoo them out so that they can’t get me.

I love having fresh eggs right in my backyard because it is so convenient, and our eggs are so much more colorful. I also really like it because I can make egg dishes by myself. My whole household really likes eggs, and I am definitely the one that is not the biggest fan of eggs, but I do really like to eat omelets.

The duck eggs are a lot richer than the chicken eggs, so I prefer chicken eggs over duck eggs. I really enjoy having chickens even though sometimes it can be hard to take care of them, but in the end I am always grateful for having them.

Editors note: Olivia likes to play soccer and swim and likes to bike and is in the 6th grade at Bothwell