The New Girls Get Names

Well the girls are all grown up now, so today was the day we banded them and gave them names. Here's the roll call.....

Nadia got her name because as we were watching her after the banding she walked across the roosting bar and balanced on one leg while stretching the other leg out in front of her and repeated this with the other leg with exception of stretching it behind her- she looked like she was preforming a balance beam routine.

Helen is a rather flighty bird. She made the biggest fuss when she was being banded.
We don't know any fussy Helen's but Dan felt that she looked like a Helen so the name stuck.

Lizzy, of course is named after Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudiced. She is not proud or prejudiced but I love the name Lizzy. Too bad she will never meet her
 Mr. Darcy.

Ethel got her name because of her BFF. She is usually found hanging around Lucy!

Bertha is the biggest of all the girls. Big Bertha just seems to suit her.

Guinever's band color is white and for some reason she just kept reminding me of
 Lady Guinevere so the name stuck.

Little Lucy actually got her name when we brought her home. She was is the smallest of the girls and always came running to me when I would peek into the brooder. She usually is one of the first ones to get to me when I go out to the coop- that is if Claudia will get out of the way!

And last but not least...Gertrude...Dan picked her name. 

Guess who would not leave me alone until I took her picture?
Claudia the photo bomber!(by the way...she rules the roost!)

So there you have it. About three weeks ago we combined the "Three French Hens" with the new girls. They are getting along as good as can be expected. They were 20 weeks old on August 7th and we found the first egg  from the new girls, laid in the run, on Sunday the 10th. There were two more today, one broke in the nesting box and the other was laid in the run again. Both were small really small but we are thrilled that they are starting. I know production will increase as they get the hang of it. The next project is to increase the size of the run and finish painting the coop. I am also not happy where the old coop is placed so we have plans to move that again. When it is all done I will give you a picture tour....or stop by and see them in person. 

Chicken Littles.......not so much

Three weeks ago I posted here about the 10 baby chicks we added to our flock. I was amazed at how quickly they outgrew their first little home. At two weeks we moved them to their new digs.....

We cleared out a space for them in the garage and my handy man Dan rigged up this baby pool with chicken wire and netting and voila'........instant chicken brooder!

Today, they outgrew their waterer. (who knew chicks drank so much!) It was almost a full-time job trying to keep it full. Thankfully, a few weeks ago, I bought another large waterer with the anticipation of needing it for the new coop. I don't even want to talk about the amount of chicken feed they are going through! Here is what they look like today, at three weeks old. 

Abi found a long, thin piece of bamboo on our walk through the park the other day and it perfectly spans across the brooder as a roosting bar. Some of them just started to use it a few days ago. You can see how they are loosing their chick down and getting their feathers. Their new coop will be going up next week and as soon as they get all their feathers, and if the weather will finally cooperate, we will introduce them to the Three French Hens.

This is a picture of what a full grown Buff Orpington hen will look like.

Welcoming Our New Arrivals

Life has been rather crazy here so there has not been much time to "blog", which I have very much missed. I knew earlier in the week that I would have several hours to myself tonight, with Abi out with her special friend Miss Kate and Dan driving a trip, but I had the hardest time deciding on what to share. Then, this morning, we welcomed our new arrivals. 

It began last night.............

Preparing the "brooder"

Then bright and early we picked up our friend, who knew more about selecting than we did, and drove to the next town an came back with a "Munchkin"-looking box ......

Our box of munchkins

If you haven't guessed, we have added 10 Buff Orpington chicks to our flock. 

We had planned a space in the garage to keep the brooder because the temperatures have been more mild here lately but, this being the crazy winter from I don't know where, the temperatures are going to dip down into the teens again tonight. Even after leaving the heat lamp on all night last night the temperature in the brooder was still only 60 degrees when we came home with the chicks so we had to move everything into the laundry room until the cold snap snaps! They are the cutest little things I have ever seen. If you would have told me years ago I would be raising 10 baby chicks I would not have believed you. Abi is thrilled with her new little fledglings. She has chosen two names (8 more to go) but I told her to wait until we can actually tell them apart before she assigns the names. What are the two names, you ask?  Greta, named after one of Mr. Popper's penguins, and Isabelle, after her niece. Not sure how big sis is going to like that but, oh well. I am planning on posting pictures each week as they grow so you can see the change. Now....to build the new coop!

In The Third Week of August My True Love Gave To Me......

 Three French Hens.....

We have finished the coop (almost). We needed to get the coop finished by Monday the 20th and were working around Dan's work schedule. It poured most of the day on Sunday so we worked all day Monday to finish up in time to pick up "The Girls". I still need to paint the roof and make some minor adjustments but it is secure enough for now. Abigail has changed one of their names from Esmeralda to Henrietta. Here is a first look....

Claudia is the chicken closest to Abi. She is so gentle. She runs up to Abi as soon as she gets near the coop. 

We brought them home last night around 8 O'clock. This morning when we got up to let them out of the coop and into the run, one little girl was not a happy chick. She kept making a sort of a growling sound (who knew chickens could growl). But by this evening, she seemed to be better adjusted and not growling any more. (I'm thinking the tomato pieces that Abi gave her might have helped improve her mood a bit) But the best part of all was..............

This afternoon, we got our first egg! 

Getting Ready for "The Girls"

We are getting ready to add three more "girls" to our family...but not the human kind. We are getting three laying hens. A family we know is moving and they can't take their chickens with them. We met the chickens a few nights ago and Abi is thrilled. One of them is named Claudia but the other two did not have names. Abi's mission for the past few days has been choosing the perfect names for the other two chickens. Yesterday she announced that she would name one of them Jemimah. This afternoon, while we were getting supplies to start the coop, she chose Esmeralda for the other one. Abi will be starting 4-H in September so this will be a perfect project for her to work on. We are under a bit of a time constraint and summertime is the season where there is not as much extra cash-flow so I had to figure out what we could use for a coop without the expense of purchasing a pre-made one. So I turned to my favorite ideas site, "Pinterest", and searched for chicken coop ideas. I found several that I liked and then happened on one that was made from a dog house. That got me thinking and I put an email out to my fellow homeschool moms asking if anyone had a dog house they were no longer using. With in a few minutes one of my dear friends emailed back offering a dog house that they were no longer using. One of the "Pinterest" articles mentioned getting some supplies from a local Habitat for Humanity resale store. We stopped by our local re-sale store today and found two gallons of paint for $5.00 each. The one gallon looked like a dark reddish brown and the other was white. Good enough for us. Well, when we got home, and I mixed up the darker color to paint the sides of the coop, we found a pleasant surprise. The color was not reddish brown but.................

............................................................PURPLE  

For those who don't know, purple is my favorite color. Abi got right in on the action and helped paint the coop. Dan started the roof tonight but will finish it on Saturday morning. Hopefully we will have the pen done on Saturday and then it is just a matter of time until we bring home the "girls".