Time to count your chickens

COEUR d'ALENE - Poop and peace are abundant at Deirdre Rushing's property.

Down the muddy driveway, goats peer through a gate with lazy eyes. A pig emits a deep, satisfied snort as it sniffs the ground. A flurry of honks rise where geese are getting into a scuffle.

The smell of hay and animal-made fertilizer is fresh in the wind. And chickens, a mob of fluffy blond, red, black and white, huddle and cluck around their pen.

Deirdre and her husband, James, wanted a country lifestyle, she said after tossing some feed on Friday morning.

So they got one. Fast.

After living on their 5 acres near Garwood for several years, they've accumulated nine goats, a lovable milk cow, 40 ducks, five colossal pigs, some turkeys and geese, two horses and five rabbits.

And 120 grown chickens. With 40 more hatchlings huddling under warming lights.

"We had all the land, so why not try it?" said Deirdre, standing by the coop in mud-caked boots, jeans and a sweatshirt with a horse silhouette. "I do love (the animals). They're comforting. I wake up not to an alarm clock, but to the sounds of the birds. And the cow will moo."

Deirdre is teaching others how to achieve a taste of what she has, a ranching lifestyle she says has brought her family peace, responsibility, extra income and a sustainable source of protein.

That is, she is helping teach a chicken-raising workshop at the University of Idaho Extension Office.

The next class is on Monday, March 4, and Deirdre does have information to share, said Jim Wilson of the Extension Office.

"They're certainly involved in livestock and animal related projects," he said of the Rushings. "They have helped (Deirdre) gain a good working knowledge of appropriate management techniques."

Just try it, Deirdre urges anyone considering something fuzzy and edible for their yards.

"What do you have to lose?" she said. "Everybody is so afraid of doing everything. You take care of your children, you feed them every day. You can feed a chicken."

Chick habit

That's how Deirdre and her husband got started, she said.

Shortly after they moved onto their pine-speckled property, they drove to St. Maries and were enchanted by feed store chicks.

"I was like, 'Aw, I want a chicken!'" she said. "So we bought four chicks and four ducks, and then we came home and immediately I got online and ordered a bunch more."

That's the story behind most animals the couple has accrued, she admitted. That, and the couple's six children have pursued many 4-H projects.

"I like to order some (chicks) every year, because it's springtime, and why wouldn't you want more babies?" Deirdre said, noting that the latest order of hatchlings arrived on Friday morning.

Animals do get expensive. Deidre isn't working now, after her part-time position at the Extension Office was eliminated due to budget cuts. James is a manager at Apple in Spokane.

"Pork prices and beef prices, if you raise your own, it's cheaper now. But it isn't an inexpensive thing to do," Deirdre said. "I spend more money for animal feed than family food every month."

But it's worth it, she said.

"Every animal has a purpose," she said.

Like getting yogurt and cheese from the goats, milk from the cow, pork from the pigs.

Baking with duck eggs "is like heaven," she added, and a baby turkey is destined to headline a Thanksgiving meal.

Plus, the chickens produce 120 eggs a day in the summer, she said, which sell rapidly.

"I sell them almost immediately," she said. "The chickens are the first animals that paid for themselves."

Work that's worthwhile

The real benefit is for the kids, Deirdre said.

The Rushing kids have built enclosures for all the animals. They have raised beasts as big as themselves, including steer.

"I feel like I'm teaching my kids, you can do anything, as long as you try and put your heart into it," Deirdre said.

They also get away from video games and TV, she added. The kids are allotted just a couple hours for those activities on weekends.

Then it's down to work.

"You constantly have to move (the animals), feed them, clean them," she said. "Tomorrow we're going up to Bonners Ferry to buy grain and pick up hay. It's just good family time. And you can't get that time back."

Her son Brandon, 13, agreed the work is worthwhile.

"It's fun. It's exciting," Brandon said of having a menagerie in the backyard.

He has learned about animal care and diseases, especially for pigs he takes to the fair.

Brandon intends to own more animals when he grows up, he added.

"Because you get to raise them and they're fun to play with," he said.

The animals are a lot of work for Deirdre, too, especially now that three kids are out of the house.

"There's always something to do. When you're sitting on the couch, you're full of guilt," she said.

But she loves every minute with the animals, she said.

Like on Friday, when she rummaged through hay in search of eggs.

"Are you makin' me an egg, pretty girl?" she cooed to a hen in the shadows. "You did! Thank you!"

She has secrets to make it easier for novices. Like what to feed the chickens so they don't eat their eggs.

Or that coating the animals in diatomaceous earth helps them stay clean and dry.

More about chicken care, and chicken-related city ordinances, will be covered at the Extension Office's $10 chicken workshop.

To sign up, call 446-1680. Or stop by the Extension Office at 1808 N. Third St. in Coeur d'Alene.

It might be hard to keep all this up, Deirdre said as her gaze swept across the fog-ringed property.

"We've talked about that. As you get older, what are you going to do?" she said.

Some animals might have to go. She'll be happy if she can at least keep a cow and one pig, she said.

"And you've got to have chickens," Deirdre said. "Because what do you do with your time?"