Our Craigslist Refugees

Most of us know that buying off of craigslist is fraught with peril.  You know that you're in extra-special trouble, however, when the words "the people in the apartment next to me are gettin' mad" come out of the mouth of someone who is trying to sell you a chicken.

Our "refugees" Lady Katherine
and Lady Elizabeth

This very thing happened to us during one of our recent flock expansions.  Thinking that it might be entertaining to have a couple of Marans, for the richly flavored eggs they produce, I somehow wound up poking through ads on craigslist.  "Blue Splash Marans, laying now!" caught my eye as I scanned the ads, and so I gave the number listed a call.  What followed was a surreal conversation in which I learned that the seller was breeding chickens in between working a job in another state.  He was experiencing some issues with his neighbors, however, mostly due to the roos he was keeping.  It seemed that their crowing was carrying through the wall into the apartment next to him.  Welcome to my surreality.

Realizing that we might not be completely tuned in on the ubiquity of the urban chicken movement, we rolled the dice, and agreed to meet at a nearby 7-11 to exchange money for what must be two very urbane Marans hens.  It was about twenty seconds into our meeting that the tone shifted from "purchase" to "rescue".  Shoved into a cage barely large enough for one bird, the two poor things stared at us with an expression that was the chicken equivalent of "Get us out of here, this guy has no idea what he's doing!".

Both of the birds had obviously been used for breeding well more often than they should have.  Each had red, raw saddles from where the roo had mounted them, and were covered in filthy grey-white feathers.  They were jittery (as chickens go), and did not seem too excited about the notion of being handled.  This may explain the need for gloves and a rough nature when our genetic engineer of a breeder transferred them to our cage.

When we asked about their laying habits, we were shown a ziplock full of fairly decently colored brown eggs (about a 4-5 on the scale), and told that they were laid just this morning.  Our suspicions turned out to be true when Katherine laid her first egg a few days later.  Still referred to as "The Leather Egg", it looked more like a reptilian creation than an avian one.  If either of these birds were capable of producing what we were shown, with all the stress they looked to have been subjected to, then I would be willing to eat that leather egg with a side of toast.

Over time, however, both birds began to calm down and enjoy their new homes.  After about a month, we were getting a nicely colored egg from Katherine, delivered on a fairly regular schedule.  It would be a bit longer before Elizabeth began to produce eggs with shells that could handle the laying process, and she's still a bit hit and miss.  Because we've moved into the realm of crazy chicken people in flock size tho, we're ok with that.

Our first "proper" eggs

Even if they had not laid a single egg, what we get from knowing that they will not face the potential of eviction, rent-increases, and poor parking, (not to mention that whole easing of suffering thing), would have been a two-way street.