Sixty Chickens: A video of the wide world of extraordinary chickens

January 23, 3:24 PMGardening ExaminerRobin Ripley

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T. Boone Chickens, a white Plymouth Rock chicken,
part of Robin's small chicken flock.

The other day when I wrote about eight benefits of raising backyard chickens, I neglected to mention that chickens are just, well, beautiful.

There are white chickens, black chickens, spotted chickens, striped chickens. You can find chickens with feathered feet, chickens with feathers that look like Easter hats, nearly bald chickens. Feathers can be short or long. Well, you get the idea. The variety of chickens is nothing short of extraordinary.

In fact, there are even books on the subject of chicken beauty, including the popular Extraordinary Chickens and Extra Extraordinary Chickens.

If you've ever attended a county fair, perhaps you've encountered the chicken barn. It's easy to get lost in there wandering among the cages of these exotic looking creatures.

That, apparently, is what happened recently to Daniel Gasteiger.

Gasteiger is a writer on such varied topics as computers, home kitchen gardening and men's belt buckles.  When he recently attended the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg, he must have spent hours in the chicken barn, because he was inspired to go home and make his own chicken video using his chicken photos.

"I actually got introduced to the backyard chicken movement a few years ago when a poker buddy built a moveable chicken coop and started several birds in his garage," wrote Gasteiger in his Home Kitchen Garden blog. "The coop’s design let him move it into the yard where chicken droppings would fall directly onto the lawn. After several days, he could move the coop and fertilize a different patch of grass. Of course, when I met the chickens, I figured my friend had blown a gasket and I got on with my life. The on-line garden chicken community is changing my thinking."

Obviously.

Gasteiger doesn't yet have chickens, but I'm betting there are some in his future. Here's his video ode to chickens, "60 Chickens."