Chickens, Chicks

The Land O’ Lakes Rescue Petting Farm Chickens

Our chickens were born in August 2008 and April 2009. We have trained our chickens to be pets. Most of chickens can be held and love to be petted. We have 17 chickens and 1 rooster in our hen house.

Chicken Facts

Chickens are domesticated wild birds. The life span of a chicken is about 10 to 15 years. The female chickens are called hens and the male chickens are called roosters and the young are called chicks. The male chickens are more brightly colored than the female.
A chicken has a comb on the head and two wattles under the neck. The male has a larger wattle and comb than the female. The female chicken usually is ready to lay her first eggs when she is around six months old. Each chicken will lay one egg per day.

The morning call you hear on the farm is actually the rooster crowing. He says cock-a-doodle-do. His name is Rocky. He plays an important part in protecting the hens and making sure they go into their house at night. The female hen goes cluck-cluck. They usually go out during the day and dig for insects and worms. In the winter they stay in their house to keep warm.

A chicken eats worms, insects, seeds, grain, snails, slugs, fruits and vegetables. They drink lots of water and we need to fill their watering can daily. Chickens need shell in their grain & water to produce eggs. The chicken’s enemies are animals like the hawks, bobcats, snakes, skunks, owls, raccoons, fishers and foxes.

There are approximately 175 varieties of chickens. We only have the white laying chickens. Sometimes when you mix the different birds they may fight. When chicks are brought on the farm, we need to keep them separate from the hens until they get their long white feathers otherwise the hens will fight with them. The chicks need to be under a heat lamp until the feathers are fully grown so they don’t get cold. It is very critical that you do this. Usually it will take approximately 3 months until they can join the full grown hens.

Everyday we praise our chickens when they lay an egg. So when you visit our farm, make sure you always say thank you to the Miss chicken for our eggs and tell her what a good girl she is.