We’re not in California anymore!

This could be subtitled: How I Went From California Suburbs to a Chicken Ranch in Arkansas. I was minding my own business one day in February, managing a busy veterinary specialty hospital in the San Francisco Bay area, when I received a phone call from a veterinarian in Arkansas. It seemed like I was on the referral list for the practice management software program we were using, and this doctor was trying to get some insight into how we had the program and our IT system set up. After three months of occasional phone calls, I was asked if I would consider moving to Arkansas.

Of course, my knee jerk reaction was, “Arkansas? I don’t think so!” After all, I was born and raised in California. Why the hell would I want to move to Arkansas? But, you know how things have a way of working in your brain. That night I did some research online. I found that Arkansas was not as far behind as it is portrayed on the Tonight Show, the school system received better scores than the school system my son attended in California, and the cost of living was much lower. I did a quick real estate search and discovered that I could actually buy a house with land, something I never thought I could afford to do in California.

So, I took a huge leap of faith. I reviewed my resume, mailed it in with a cover letter, and booked a flight two weeks in advance. I contacted a real estate agent to schedule some showings while I was there. The drive from the Little Rock airport to Clarksville in the Arkansas River Valley convinced me that this was where I wanted to be, whether or not I got the job in the specialty veterinary practice. Two weeks later they made me an offer which I accepted. The last week of August, I moved my family (mother, sister, son, and dog) to Arkansas.

It took three more months of searching, but I finally found the perfect house situated on 15 acres, roughly half wooded and half grassland; a hundred-sized pond, year-round, cross fences, and a barn. I had only been there for a couple of months when a friend from the vet called and asked if I would like some chickens. The doctor’s neighbor has a Tyson farm, and during the collection, several chickens “escaped”. Once they’ve been free, Tyson doesn’t want them. So, 25 chickens were delivered to my house. Now the biggest experience I had with chickens was trying to raise three silkies in our backyard in California until raccoons caught them about 3 weeks into the project. Suddenly, he had 25 adult laying hens to care for. Just for the record, when asked how many I wanted, I said a dozen. Apparently a dozen is considerably more here in Arkansas than it is in California!

Unfortunately for my poor hens, I learned a lot through trial and error in those first few months. But several years later, I have a good sized flock, mostly free range. We enjoy farm fresh eggs almost year round. I have successfully incubated and hatched chickens. And while some of my family still have issues with the idea, I have slaughtered some of the roosters and served them for dinner when my rooster-to-hen ratio was too high. In future articles, I will discuss details on how to raise backyard chickens and run an animal rescue.

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