Bossy Bessy

• Buff Brahma
• lays light brown small eggs
• won't lay in the nesting closet with all the other chickens
• lays in the garage in her own spot
• paid extra to make sure she was a girl (10 buckeroos)
• fiesty (even though every description I've read about this breed is they are super nice and sweet) I have to sneak up and catch her and she allows me to hold her nicely, but then when I put her down again...if any body part of mine is close to her she'll attack it..No it doesn't hurt.
• Marshmallow picks on her
• Bessy picks on Barry and Shirley Schroom

Mama

• Buff Orpington
• sweetest mock mother
• very very docile
• lays light brown eggs
• still mother to Barry when they are roosting he still tries to get under her wing

Marshmallow

• white silkie
• lays white eggs
• finally can tell she's a girl...late bloomer
• sweetest thing ever I hold her all the time and when I go feed them...she is always around my feet wanting to be near me
• is NOT on the bottom of pecking order somewhere near the bottom maybe like 3rd from the bottom
• just got done taking a dirt bath so she looks like a toasted marshmallow

Ruby

This is Ruby...She was a good girl. 

• brown speckled egg
• lethargic, not producing eggs, poop was not solid/almost watery
• almost 3 years old
• top of pecking order
• Red Star

Since I knew the signs, I was calling imediately around at avian vets (there aren't very many here) and the only that could see me right away was someone in Sandy, just past Ikea.  The tech that examined her first thought..."yep she's eggbound" then the dr. came in and examined her and said...nope she's not eggbound...But he offered to keep her overnight and to do xrays to see if she had swallowed something foreign.  But being the practical girl I am (I was attached to her though) I opted to just take her home and see what happened.   She became better and less lethargic but still not producing any eggs and was just somehow less.  She was like that for about a year.  Then in the summer of 2011 she started being sedentary and only moving to eat or drink...(thankfully she was still doing those things).  I started to notice that when she pooped it would stick to her backside.  We cleaned her several times and one time I noticed a big mass to one side of her bum behind her leg.  All of the symtoms when googled indicated that she had cancer and then when I felt that mass I was pretty sure she had it too.  So I  just tried to keep her comfortable.  But at the end she wouldn't even get up to go to her normal bed in the garage at night time when all the other chickens would.. she stayed in a nesting box in the outdoor closet.  I was worried because a predator could come and she would probably just let them eat her.  I couldn't stand to see her like that anymore so I did the only humanely thing I could think of...I had my son put her out of her misery.  Sad day.  But she wasn't in pain anymore.

Henrietta

She is one of the oldies but very goodies. She's over 3 but still laying strong. Popo doesn't much fancy her. He often is chasing her away from the food, but she just says..."um hello, I was here first" It doesn't bother her one bit. She runs from his pecks and then is right back in his face.

Shirley is a b...girl

Forever we thought this silkie was a boy, mainly because he didn't like to be held and all the other ladies LOVE to be held but I guess that's not always true. Today since I would like to know more about who lays which egg, I spent a considerable amount of time outside just watching and being apart of their daily morning ritual. This is what I saw...I've seen the white silkie messing around in the nest boxes closet for a couple days now but I haven't actually seen her lay, but I've never seen the brown silkie in there at all. Today I saw her talking like she wanted to lay and then went in a nesting box for about 1/2 hour to do her business. Afterward she did the obligatory clucking..."I just layed an egg!!" And actually she was quite calm about it so one of the cuckoo marans helped her out..."now this is how you do it" I went right in to gather her egg and there it was all warm. One egg I now know is hers...it's light brown and of course the smallest. And that she's a lady now. BTW I named her Shirley (even when she was a boy)in a round about way to remind me that she is a partridge (the partridge family...shirley jones...is that a stretch?) silkie.

Three of a kind

I don't have a name for these guys and actually they aren't all the same. I have 2 cuckoo marans and 1 barred rock. And I can't seem to tell the difference.

Look what I found!!

The tiniest egg. Isn't it so cute! And I have no idea who layed it.

Michelle

Here is a picture of a Black Sex link chicken. When she is in the sunlight she has brilliant bright orange feathers on her belly. And all the black feathers are a green sheen. She is the only that as I bend down and fill the water dish or throw feed on the ground she hops on my back for a visit.

I guess we'll start with the boy... Po Po

My friend suggested that I highlight a chicken each week. So I've taken pictures of the majority of them and I'll post one every week (or try to).

Isn't he just lovely! He is the most skiddish one of the group. He won't let me pick him unless I corner him and grab him. This morning as I was feeding them, he charged me and pecked my foot...just a little blood spot. This is the same little chick who would cry and cry because he was cold and wanted someone to hold him and blow warm air on him or tuck him in your pocket. He was not even content under the heat lamp. He always wanted to be by a chicken or held. Funny little boy.

New eggs!!

Oh my goodness! This is one of the funnest parts of raising chickens...Find the first new eggs of new chickens!!

The brown eggs is the new egg. They are from the golden sexlinks. Both girls are laying now. I get a lighter brown egg and a darker brown egg. The green egg comes from Amy (the Americauna)

Barry

Ok, you can't see the new baby very well because "mama" is being so sweet. I guess there's a point when the "babies" won't take very well to newbies in the house. I got this guy for my birthday and snuck him in the group (I have them all together in a box in the garage.) very late one night. The next morning he was no where to be found. I looked all around my yard in all the garages and again with all the chickens I had just let out. I couldn't find him. So I thought I'd go look one more time in the garage where he was and search better. I just called "birdie" and out he popped from hiding behind a box. He must've not been accepted very in the night. The big babies chase after him and nip at him. Everyone else is pretty tolerant of him. The white silkie is so sweet to him but "mama" lets him snuggle under her wing and he is her little baby. I separated those two from the pack for some time. When I finally did allow them to be with the pack he would make sure he on the outside of mama hiding from the bullies. I'm afraid he might be a boy.

PoPo

Meet Popo. He is on the right side of the water dish. He is a polish. Isn't he beautiful! I just picked this one out of the cage at IFA and was pleasantly surpirsed with his color. I think they refer to this color as blue. His friend, Shirley, a partridge silkie is drinking next to him. Here is a nice description of other colors and varieties of polish. I would really love a buff polish like the one below. Maybe one day. Just a couple days ago we found out that Popo is a boy. He has a very pathetic crow right now and today I just saw him trying to piggy back a couple girls. I can't bare to get rid on him just cause he's a boy. He's sooo cool.

Russian Orloff

This is Katya. I believe her mama was named that too. I got her from a farm in salt lake city. Her dad's name was Vlad. Isn't that cool? And doesn't she look (rolling the rrrr) russian? This breed in on the endangered list.

Finally they arrived...

At the end of February my special order chicks arrived in the mail. The post lady called me personally to make sure I was home to get these noisemakers off her truck. Oh it was so fun to see them. They all made it.
Can you believe there are SEVEN in there?

I had to pay extra shipping because I didn't order something like 25. There is a little hand warmer in there too. I'm pretty sure that's what I paid an extra 35 completos for!

Here is what is in the box.

Silkies (4) red, partridge, white, blue all straight run (meaning I don't know if I have boys or girls, it will be a fun surprise in the middle of the summer)

Sussex Maran (2) these are the little ladies that lay a dark chocolate brown egg.

Buff Brahma (1) paid extra for this one...although I don't know why now since I didn't with the silkies. I paid extra to make sure that this one was a girl. She was around 10 completos.

They are a joy to have!!! And all the babies love each other. On a sad side note. The babies were about a month old and I stepped on the red silkie and he died. A couple days later the blue silkie was no where to be found. So I have half the silkie population now.

And the group after that...

Here is my next fix...I finally got an a buff orpington "mama" and an australorpe (the solid black one) and a barred rock. They are so beautiful! Little did I know that mama would be sooo super sweet to everyone and and all the chicks. She just walks up to you almost like she wants you to pick her up and of course I do!

The next group

Every year I long to add more chickens...there is something about watching the chickens that just brings me such joy. Every time I make time to just enjoy "their" company they come flock to me. Such a great morale booster! hehe

This year I'm not sure what happened to actually allow me to get more chickens. I think I researched so many breeds...I had to have a dark brown egg layer, the bearded varieties, and of course all the exotic ones. While I was looking/ordering/waiting for my special batch to come in the mail around the end of Feb. I was getting ancy (is that how you spell it?) I was calling the feed and farm stores here asking when they would get baby chicks in. I wanted to have my fix right then. A store about 30 minutes away had babies so I went to get some. When I arrived they had just sold the last buff orpington so I had to settle on some black and gold sexlink. All that means is that you can tell if they are boys or girls right away as soon as they hatch because of their coloring. So of course I had to have some so I took 2 golds and one black. Here they are I think about a month or two old testing out the back yard for their first time.

Oldies but goodies

Here are the oldest girls in the group. They are 3 years old. Amy and Henrietta are still laying about 5 eggs a week. I try to name my chickens to help me remember their breed. But that is not always the case and we haven't name all of them yet. They kinda have to grow into their personalities to name them too.

Amy is the Americauna the brown one that looks like an eagle. She lays a light green egg. She is sooo sweet. She has tuffs and a beard that are sooo soft. I love to hold her.

Henrietta is an example of just a name that we liked and named her. She is the one in the middle. She is either a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Red. I'm not sure what the difference is between those two. She lays a light brown almost pink egg. I think her eggs are the best for cooking/eating.

Ruby is the first chicken in the picture and is a Red Star. She used to lay a nice speckled brown egg. I absolutely loved the color of her eggs. She stopped laying eggs about a year ago but she was the one that started first...I would say about a month before the other two. She has since passed on and I will share her story in another post...stay tuned.

I did have other chickens. I started with 10 chickens for this batch. Either they didn't make it or were roosters. I bought them from a gentleman who didn't gaurantee the sex (straight run) so I got what I got. I had a couple buff orpingtons and barred rocks but they were all boys and I couldn't stand the idea of getting rid of all of them so I kept my favorite one...the orpington (wish I had a picture). He was sooo sweet...to me...but not anyone else. He would jump and try to spur other people. One day while I was in Idaho and the boys were taking care of the chickens he wound up dead... Needless to say these three little ladies are the only oldies I have left.

Saaweeet Birdies

I love my sweet birdies. They are a joy to just watch all the barnyard stories that go on. They each have their own personalities. Some are easier to love than others. I thought I would share some stories and pictures of my little outside family.