The Blind Lemon James Home for Wayward Chickens

01/17/2023

One of our neighbors has been paying for their eggs with venison. 😎 Good times!

11/01/2021

01/02/2020

12/27/2019

Here at the Blind Lemon James Home for Wayward Chickens, we’ve got a full house for the holidays. Earlier this month, over two dozen factory farm refugees were delivered to our doorstep. This brings the current number of chickens here to over 60 - the most we’ve ever had at one time. It’s a bit of a madhouse right now.

In the video, you’ll see the winner of Most Annoying Chicken of 2019 - a pretty impressive feat considering he’s only been here for a few weeks. His name is Bitey. Because, yes, he’s a very bitey rooster. Not in a hostile way but more like he’s testing everything to see if it’s food. Nothing is safe: Brightly painted fingernails, buttons on a jacket, a bag you’re holding, bare skin... Frankly, anything below waist-level is fair game. Turn your back on him and he’ll bite you on the butt. It starts the minute you step outside and never lets up. When you open the car door, he immediately jumps inside, looking for the food. If he finds it, he won’t come out. If he doesn’t find it, he’ll just keep looking. He may be an annoying bird, but he’s our annoying bird and we couldn’t be happier that he’s now free.

Recently, a few people have suggested starting a fundraiser since the feed bill has shot up during a time of year when few eggs are being laid. I don’t like hassling people for money and setting up an official fundraiser smacks of effort. If you wanna buy food for the chickens, you can PayPal it to ranchospenardo at gmail.com. It costs three to five dollars a day to feed all these birds, depending on whether it’s the cheap stuff or the fancy stuff with a dozen different kinds of seeds. It may not sound like much but it’s more than gets spent on human food around here. They go through almost 150 pounds of feed a week (in addition to plants, bugs and kitchen scraps). And that’s not counting the donkey and goats we took in this year. Or the dog and cats that were already here. Or the dog that showed up this summer and wouldn’t leave. Nobody’s gonna go hungry if you don’t donate but, if you want to give a couple bucks so that the chickens get extra sunflower seeds, you won’t be turned down.

From all of us at the Blind Lemon James Home for Wayward Chickens, we wish you a happy and auspicious new year!

08/08/2018

I just got this poor sad rescue today. It doesn't look like it now but she is the same type of chicken as the other birds in the picture. When she was a little baby chick, she fell beneath the slatted floor of the factory farm and has spent the last year getting p**ped on by 8000 other chickens. Today was most likely the first time in a year that she drank fresh clean water (and, boy, did she drink a lot of it!). She has probably subsisted off of little but spilled feed, broken eggs and whatever bugs she might have found. I had to cut off a lot of her feathers because they were just matted solid with clumps of dried p**p. As awful as she looks right now, in two months she will look like a brand new chicken. I look forward to helping her transform into a happy and healthy free-range hen.

06/03/2018

Meet Ghostface. He's a young bull who recently escaped from a neighboring farm and has been spending the better part of the last week here. He seems to enjoy the company of chickens. Okay, if we're being totally honest, he seems to enjoy their food even more.

08/07/2017

I normally don't like to share click-bait but, in this case, I'll make an exception. Check out #6. It's our very own lovely hen, Heather, with our cat Percy! All together now...Awwwww.

Mothers are awesome. They're caring, loving and can do everything for the little ones. And I'm not only talking about amazing women, but also about all the mothers of the animal kingdom.

04/01/2017

Atlanta peeps! C'mon by the Freedom Farmers Market this Saturday at the Carter Center. I'll be selling eggs at Moore Farms and Friends' tent. It's gonna be a freakin' gorgeous day!

03/25/2017

03/04/2017

Ouch!

03/03/2017

It happened again: She snuck off to sit on a secret nest. This morning she showed up with 11 little fluffballs in tow. Surprise!

01/13/2017

Nine days ago, one of our long-time residents, Mrs. Kravitz, disappeared. It happens sometimes. She's nearly blind and gets lost once in a while. I went looking for her in all her usual spots but couldn't find her. She didn't turn up the next morning either. I looked high and low, calling her name (though she can't see well, her hearing is just fine), but couldn't find a trace of her.

I had to call the search off when the weather turned bad. It rained and then the rain turned into sleet. Temps dropped below freezing for several nights in a row. Everything was coated in a hard shell of ice. It got as low as 11F at night (that's -11C). Eventually, I gave up all hope of finding her. If a predator hadn't already killed her, the horrible weather surely did. I was heartbroken.

Fast-forward to this afternoon: I look out the window and see Mrs. Kravitz walking around the front yard. I couldn't believe my eyes! How this nearly blind chicken managed to survive outdoors for eight nights on her own without getting eaten by a predator or succumbing to hypothermia, I will never know. Other than being very hungry and thirsty, she seems perfectly fine. Not even a touch of frostbite.

Welcome home, Mrs. Kravitz!