New Chicken Blogger: Farmer Sam July 29, 2014
Let me introduce myself! I’ll be My Pet Chicken’s newest flock member and chicken blogger, so I’d like to share a little about myself. My name is Sam, although I prefer to be called Farmer Sam by my chicken keeping friends. I live in Fairfield, Connecticut where I raise chickens and sheep. I started my chicken keeping adventure with three production red hens I got from our local feed store. Not long after I got them, I started my first blog, called “Connecticut Chickens.” While trying to get more readers I volunteered to give a talk at our local feed store’s springtime chicken keeping seminar.
That was where I first met My Pet Chicken’s Traci. Traci helped open my eyes a little more to the many amazing chicken breeds that exist, and to how the chicken keeping industry worked!
One day, a few months after the seminar, we were buying chicken feed at the feed store and overheard a lady talking about her sheep. We asked her about them a little and after looking at the photo of them we were convinced we had to have some. She kindly brought us to her home to meet her sheep. After visiting her farm, we went online to find breeders who had the breed we wanted. We found one not too far away and arranged a visit. The sheep she had were a set of twins just under a year old. We immediately began preparations for them and in no time we were ready to take them home. We would never have had that opportunity if we hadn’t entered the backyard farming world with our wonderful chickens!
As a chicken blogger, you may often see me write about how chickens are a “gateway” animal, and will always be leading you to new kinds of farm animals and pets. That was my experience! After getting the sheep, I decided that I had so many fun stories to write about them that my Connecticut Chickens blog needed to be expanded to incorporate my new interest, too. That’s why I created a new blog called Hens and Hooves. Now, I’m more than a chicken blogger! After reading some of my posts there, Traci kindly asked me to blog for My Pet Chicken, too.
I have approximately 50 chickens of many different ages right now. I have a very diverse laying flock made up of large fowl breeds from My Pet Chicken. My “mini flock” is made up of mostly Silkies, but a few other bantams too.
We are not inclined to keep roosters as it is usually not pleasing to the neighbors, but we have kept them for a couple weeks to fertilize eggs for our broody hens. We will occasionally buy fertile eggs from alternate sources to get new breeds and varieties to hatch in our incubator, since we don’t usually have eggs to hatch from our own flock.
One of my goals as a chicken blogger and keeper of chickens is to encourage others to join me in the wonderful journey of chicken keeping. To say chicken keeping has changed my life is an understatement. Now, I really cannot imagine my life without chickens, or the wonderful people I meet in my chicken keeping adventures! If you’re not already a chicken keeper, hopefully this chicken blogger will be able to help change that. If you already raise chickens, hopefully I’ll enable you to go farther in your chicken keeping endeavors and maybe even move onto other fun farm animals, like sheep!
In any case, you can now expect fun posts from me about the feathered and woolly friends here on our farm. I am truly honored to be the newest chicken blogger at this amazing company, My Pet Chicken.
Yours in Chicken Keeping,
Farmer Sam
I cannot wait to read some more of your stuff! I just started keeping chickens this year (approx. 3 months ago), and now we are talking sheep! And my name is Sam to top it off! Seems like my future self 🙂 happy keeping!
Hi I started raising araucanas in 1957 I got my first pair indirectly from the universit y at gueloh ont they were supposed to have done research on the breed they were rumpless I hadmixed results , I am alay person , but figuredthere was something wrong with the hatching pro ess I dont believe this breed as we know Iit Iis fixed , no one can convince me that rumpless chickens were running around Iin the jungle , progating because of this death gene , there Iis some pieces of the puzzle missing if researchers have made progress onthis breed , they havekept it to them selves I keep getting throw backs when crossing tailed to tailed and get some rumpless ther isa lot left todo on this breed they are thebest breed I know of as far as egg production feed con version withlittle mortally I would recomend this breed toany one who likes poultry
Hi, Carl! The Araucana breed actually was not developed until 1976, although of course its blue and green egg laying “Easter Egger” ancestors were around. You can read more about how Araucanas and Ameraucanas were developed from Easter Eggers on our website. We also discuss the fatal gene you mention–although it is not the rumplessness that is fatal, but the tuftedness. It’s an interesting story!
Great job Farmer Sam!! 🙂
Farmer Sam you are such a inspiration ! I love reading your posts. Many could learn from you .
Farmer Sam – Your story is my story! We have only had our chickens a month and because we enjoy them so much, we are looking at maybe getting a goat or pig. I am also from Connecticut, way on the other side in Columbia! Knowing we have the same winters , I am looking forward to your post about winter chicken keeping. I still have alot to learn!
Oh Farmer Sam. We enjoy reading your chicken experiences and eating your chickens! Keep us up to date. 🙂