Lazy8 wrote: 
Also, if you wanna get fancy and get all of these exotic Japanese breeds and what not before you do read the breed personality description and know that they are understating the traits!  Unless you want an attack rooster for protection or want to start a cock fighting ring, do NOT get Phoenix roosters!!

 hippiechick wrote:
A coop for them to roost in (mine is heated with a 100W incandescent bulb in the winter) and either a fenced run (with a lid/roof or the young hens will fly out) or neighbors patient with chickens roaming their yards.

You'll need a feeder and a waterer. Where you live you'll need a heater for the waterer.

Ours eat grain and table scraps, plus they run free and forage all day. We have to close them up in the coop every night to keep predators out. We have been buying feed at feed stores but are experimenting with bulk grains. We also feed crushed oyster shell for calcium and bake and crush eggshells to mix with the feed.

We have 10 hens and get 6-8 eggs a day. You don't need a rooster for eggs, and in an urban setting they are pretty obnoxious.

Chickens typically live from 5-10 years (our record was about 14 years) but they pretty much retire at age 10, dropping to an egg every other day or so. An old hen will still go broody and raise chicks, so they still serve a purpose. Like a grandmother running a daycare.

Chickens have personalities like cats—very independent, but they show affection and have a vicious social order. We've had hens freeze to death because they were kept off the roost and couldn't huddle with the others.

It isn't hard, you just have to deal with it every day. If you keep them penned expect to clean out or move the pen every 3 month or so. If you let them roam maybe once a year. There are good books on the subject (A Guide to Raising Chickens is good, but meant for meat raising rather than egg producers) and lots of help online.

 hippiechick wrote: 
Really, you just need a coop or coop like structure and a large high fenced with netting area. If you live in a residential area off course check your zoning laws to make sure they are allowed in your area. I live in Georgia, this is not an issue here! If you are diligent and collect them every day to insure freshness, a flock of about 20 hens can easily produce a big old bucket full is all I know. I am not the egg collector, but I know it is a bunch! The key is to make sure and gather up all the eggs each and every day, if you do this you should never have to buy eggs at the grocery store ever again. Also, duck and goose eggs are outstanding. We quit eating the goose eggs because they would get so traumatized after each egg collection. Ducks don't give a shit about nothing!

 sirdroseph wrote:
  HA!

 cc_rider wrote: 
I would pay big bucks to see her in a debate with Rick Perry.

 DaveInVA wrote:
 
My thought exactly. Eloise sounds like a genius. Make friends with, heck sleep with, the ones who should be your enemies. Maybe Eloise should run for office...

 sirdroseph wrote: 
What is required for chicken raising (besides chickens duh)? Is it difficult? How many eggs do you get in a day?

 DaveInVA wrote: 
This is actually not the first time we have had a chicken do this. It is usually a Rhode Island red hen that will for some reason just attach itself more to humans than to birds. We had one that if you left the door open for too long and weren't paying attention, she would sneak inside and just chill out in the kitchen until we shooed her out!

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Maybe she is actually very cunning hoping she has fooled you into thinking she is a cat.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Sounds like she is the black sheep!

We have one red hen, just one that absolutely insists on staying inside the fence area of our backyard and not in the aviary/pen with all of the other birds. She sometimes sleeps on the back porch with our dogs and cats who normally would try eating her, but she is not skittish around them so they are uninterested! We have named her Eloise and she is the only chicken that we have named.  Eloise is not very smart.

 meower wrote: 
she is so frickin CUTE!!

 meower wrote: 
She does the best chicken ever. Thanks.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Haven't found any yet. Whisenhunts though.

 cc_rider wrote:
Sounding even more likely. Any McKeevers in the bunch?

 Lazy8 wrote:
  You know that new movie coming out? 'True Grit' with Jeff Bridges? Mr. Bridges plays 'Rooster Cogburn', the character first popularized by John Wayne. Well, ol' Rooster was an actual person, WAY before the movie came out (and the book it was based on). The whole clan was a bunch of bootleggin', moonshinin', backwoods characters: it is unlikely the real Rooster could ever have been a U.S. Marshall, even by the standards of the day. My great-grandfather Tom Cogburn moved to OK from AR sometime around 1908.

The most infamous of the Cogburns was 'Little George', apparently sometimes called Rooster as well. He was quite a moonsh... er, independent entrepreneur, and went to some lengths to protect his operations, apparently including a number of murders. The author of 'True Grit', Charles Portis, grew up in Arkansas, so it's likely he knew well of the Cogburns' colorful history.

A little searching (it's a slow day at work) has uncovered some great info, including:

 Rooster was nicknamed for the original "Rooster Cogburn," of True Grit fame. The first Rooster was his great-uncle who was born around Caddo Gap, but grew up and lived in the Fort Smith area. (Actually, several profiles of early lawmen were combined to create the character of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, which also starred Arkansas native Glen Campbell of Delight.)

 oldslabsides wrote:
 
Sells 'em. Ships 'em all over the world. I don't think they're used for fighting, at least not anymore.

http://thehochatowngamefarm.com/Pictures%201.html

 cc_rider wrote:

Holy crap we may be kin!

 cc_rider wrote: 

What's he raisin' them thar fightin' cocks roosters fer?