New Chickens!

Please meet (from left): Amber, Gertrude, Joan, Dorothy, Lois, and Florence. They are too shy to show you their faces just yet.

Amber is our very first Buff Orpington. Joan and Gertrude are Rhode Island Reds. Dorothy and Lois are Easter Eggers. And Florence is a Plymouth Barred Rock. Florence has been the early leader, adventuring to the water first, onto the roost first, into the food first. Which is why we named her after Tom’s adventuring Aunt Florence who loved to visit new places. All these chickens are named after women in our family that we admire.

We were down to four chickens, two of whom aren’t laying at all anymore (from our very first batch of chickens all those years ago). I’m tired of not having fresh eggs, so I’ve been waiting for the right moment to add some new hens. The other day I saw a post in CropMobster - a farmer in Petaluma had pullets for sale. So today I drove up north and picked these six up. Let me know if you want some too and I’ll get you the farmer’s email and phone #. He has a lot more to sell. They are really a bit younger than pullets - coop-ready chicks, I’d call them. I had to run out and buy crumble because the pelleted food was too big for them.

I have the six little hens in a large dog crate in the main coop. They have food and water and a branch for roosting. At night I’ll cover the cage with a blanket to keep the wind and chill off of them. In a few days, I’ll put them in with our big hens, and they can fight it out, but meanwhile they are protected while they all get to know each other.

Our four big hens are completely nonplussed - very unsure of this new situation. So maybe they will all be on equal footing when I finally let everyone mingle. I can only hope.