On Cows and Keeping Chickens

Sometimes you’re drawn into a world you know little about and come back both amazed and enlightened.

It’s happened to me twice today already. The first came about by following the @talkirish Twitter feed.

To explain: I have an Irish girlfriend I’d like to impress with my knowledge of her native tongue. But thus far my Irish vocab only includes such useful words as ‘poc’ (goat) and ‘ceapaire’ (sandwich). So if I’m ever starving in Sligo I can at least ask for a goat sandwich.

Today’s Irish word came through on the Twitter wire.

“Hey Mike,” I say to Winging It’s Hibernian Editor, “today’s Irish word is ‘Bó′.”

“That’ll be ‘Cow’,” he says.

Next thing I know I’m knee deep in Irish myths on th’internets reading about the Cattle Raid Of Cooley, which as far I can tell is all about mass slaughter through bull envy.

The second voyage of discovery happened just now as I was researching chickens (bear with me) …

As the credit crunch bites even harder more people are starting to grow their own veg, make their own stuff (Kirstie Allsop throws a pot and uptake in pottery classes quadruples*) and even keep their own chickens.

To this end, via notcot.org I came across the rather lovely and enthusiastic www.backyardchickens.com, which proudly presents itself as the: “#1 destination for the information you need to raise, keep, and appreciate chickens”.

It’s fairly USA-centric, but does indeed contain pretty much everything you (n)ever wanted to know about chicken keeping.

There’s a guide to breeds, which takes chicken appreciation to a new, intimate level. The ‘Blue Laced Red Wyandotte’ is apparently “a bird of curves”.  Hmmm. Not sure I needed to know that.

A bunch of Chicken sayings: “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.” (Frank Lloyd Wright.)

And (relating to the previous quotation) there’s a great gallery of chicken coops, some of which would indeed shame Notre Dame. Ok, maybe that’s a slight eggsageration (ahem) but some of these chickens have seriously nice cribs…

The Kreitz Family’s “Poulet Chalet”

"ChickenHaus"

The (slightly odd) GopherBoy's Coop

And finally … the one I saw on notcot.org that dragged me into this odd – but strangely comforting – world of chicken keeping, the wonderfully absurd:

Maurice, The Car Chicken Coop

The last one is from England, naturally. No-one does eggcentricity (ouch) like the English.

For a more modern take on the chicken coop, see ‘Chicken Coop For The Soul‘.

*Note: I just made up this statistic, but it’s probably true.