Jillian Miller
Staff Writer
Skip Blauch, Manheim local, found an unexpected guest in his garden, and after some time and research, it inspired a new hobby.
Now a proud owner of four Golden Comet hens, Skip’s chicken raising story didn’t start at a feed store, but with a surprise guest in the form of a mystery chicken named Fred.
Late in the summer of 2021, Skip’s grandson, Ben, was visiting. Skip asked him to go pick some tomatoes off the vine in the garden.
“All of the sudden,” Skip recalls, “He [Ben] yells ‘There’s something alive in here!”
He expected to see a common garden snake or a turtle, but instead found a stray chicken looking right at him. While he never found out where the chicken exactly came from, Skip figured it was from one of the farms that surrounded his house.
For about a month, Fred would make an appearance while Skip was outside, but would disappear when night fell. He eventually set out food and water because he was concerned Fred wasn’t eating enough, as well as chasing him into the shed for shelter when the cold weather came.
A few months later, Fred disappeared for good. While Skip worried about what happened to Fred, it got him thinking about raising his own chickens. He took to the internet and started researching and reading everything he could about raising chickens. By then, the whole family had heard about his plan, and the following Christmas he received essentially a whole library of chicken books as presents
Building of the coop took longer than expected, but March 29th, 2024, he officially got his own chicks. The four Golden Comet chicks were only a few weeks old and not yet ready for the outdoor enclosure. They stayed in a smaller enclosure in the garage with a heating lamp, food, and water to protect them until their adult feathers came in.
Once they were big enough, Skip transferred them into their permanent coop outside, and not long after he got his first eggs.
“Around the 12 week mark, all of the sudden, I found two half size eggs,” he said. “And then of course the other ones [chickens] started producing too.” From that point forward, Skip hasn’t bought a single egg from the store.
With any new adventure, there is always some challenges. For a while, Skip was concerned about one of his hens, Baby, who looked completely different from the others. She was much smaller and had lighter feathers. His oldest daughter, Sherry, noticed too.
“I thought it was strange, it had such different coloring than the others. When I did a search for the Comet breed, I found the male was often lighter in color,” she explained. Thankfully, after waiting and watching anxiously, they discovered Baby was a hen, and not a rooster.
Raising chickens is more than just a hobby for Skip, it’s part of his daily routine now. It’s not always easy, making sure they have fresh water and food, and maintaining the coop, the payoff is well worth it. What started as a surprise guest in Skip’s garden, has grown into his own backyard operation.
