A mother, a son and a bunch of silly chicks
What am I going to do with all these chickens?
Just like any mother of an active 5-year-old boy, I am always looking for fun and educational things to do with him. We live in rural Maine and have a backyard coop that’s home to a small flock of free-range chickens. One day I gathered up 14 of their eggs and set them in our little incubator to see what happened. Three weeks later, much to my surprise, out popped 12 adorable peeping chicks! This was fun and educational, but now, what was I going to do with all these chickens?
Along with my son, I picked out a few to keep, and the rest needed to find new families to live with. As a photographer I’m aware of the power of imagery, and these little chicks required some persuasive and compelling personal profiles in order to find themselves new homes. Match.com for chickens doesn’t exist, so I had to get creative.
If you’re a parent, you know that toys are everywhere, and on the floor next to the box the chicks were living in were some of my son’s cars and plastic animals. As I gathered up each chick for its own personal photo shoot, an idea hatched in my brain: Why not photograph the chicks on these toys? And so Silly Chickens was born.
Together my son and I have had fun not only watching the chicks hatch and grow, but helping them find new homes in an entertaining and silly way. Oh, and the marketing effort worked — nine of the chicks moved in with a nearby family with two little girls to keep watch over them. I’m not sure if the girls are sharing their toys, though!
Guarantee: No chickens were harmed in the making of these photos.
Text and photography by Alexandra Daley-Clark/sillychickens.com
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