Chicken Update!

Here's what we've missed in the past two months in "Cackleberry Hollow".

Ms Judy and Scarlett have finally been accepted into the fold, although at times the Buffy's with their "Ohio Orpington" attitude still likes to put them in their place. We've discovered that Scarlett lays a pretty pink egg and that Ms. Judy lays an Army green egg. Now that is is Spring/Summer their egg production is up. Usually we get about 3 a day, but some days we're surprised with 1 from each of them for a total of 5.

A week before Easter, we went and picked up our 7 new day olds from Myer Hatchery up in Polk, Ohio. It was quite possibly the coldest day in April. We had 7 of the cutest chick. Summer, the Americauana, that looked like a tiger, and was the Boy's favorite. He held it in the car the whole 2 hour trip home and then constantly the first night. I even saw Summer riding in the back of a Hess truck (a favorite gift from Pawpa). Of course, once I saw it we had to stop it as Summer was only 24 hours old.

Then we had Becky, the Buckeye chicken, Maran, the Cuckoo Maran, and 4 silkies. The silkies were straight run, which means we didn't know if they were boys or girls, so they hadn't been named...except the littlest one, Runt. All started out well. I will post pictures when I get to the library (my computer here is too slow for that...it times out) We started a project with Summer of measuring every day. She was growing about 5/8 of an inch daily. I have some funny pictures because they started out living in a Ramen box...chicken flavored :) Summer was a character and seemed to like being handled as much a the Boy would handle her. On their third night, she even got out of the box and seemed to go looking for him. I heard her crying, loudly, at 3 am and struggled downstairs to find her out of the box in the utility room, all the way on the other side of the playroom. A huge trek for something the size of a tennis ball!!

Sadly, by Easter, my back was getting much worse and it was very difficult to get downstairs. (Or stand, or sit, or...) and the babies ran out of water, became overheated, or something (I'm thinking the first...) and on Easter Monday, the Man had the sad job of letting Boy and I know that all but Maran had perished in the night. Even Summer. It was an awful day. But we tried to learn from the experience and lear that we were responsible for these critters on loan from God. A hard lesson for an 8 year old.

Maran started receiving lots of love and care. I called the hatchery to see if we could get the same breeds. It was going to be months before they had Buckeyes and Americauna babies available again. Sigh. Then....

One week after the tragedy, the Man was gone for the day off doing a delivery to Dayton Ohio. He stopped on the way back from Dayton to the Tractor supply to get the big chickens some feed. When he arrived home at 5ish, he called up the stair to me (where I was now basically confined to bed and had not ventured downstairs in about 5 days.) He called up "Who's hungry?" We said, "we are!" He replied, "Well, I have a bucket of chicken here for you." He came into the room and handed the Boy and I a box that was peeping!!! A box full of new day olds!!! And then we ordered PIZZA!

These ones are surprises!! We don't know exactly what breed they are, what color they will lay, what they will look like as adults..although now that they are a month old we have a better idea. Only 1 of the new birds has a name. Maran is a week older so she has always been bigger, but now the others are catching up. We have 2 white ones, and 4 redish/brown mottled looking ones. The smaller white one is Dini (pronouced "dean-y") for Houdini. She managed to keep getting out of the box, to sit on the top and watch the world go by...or hide behind the cabin, or walk across the floor...) By my best estimate, I think we have two White Rock Chickens and I think they will lay white eggs, and I think the 4 are Rhode Island Reds, and will lay brown eggs. Maran is black with white spots and will lay chocolate brown eggs.

My "chicken" lady that we got the Buffies from last year, heard of our sad news and has emailled that she just had a hatching and would like to trade chickens for wood shavings. So now that the "babies" have graduated out of the utility room (and thank goodness, they were getting smelly) and into a dog cage out by the coop. We may actually get a couple more. If we could find a property (yet another post) and get out of here, we would take lots more. She raises Buckeyes, so we may get another Becky in the next batch. She also has a "Splash Maran" that has the exact opposite coloring as our current Maran. So we may get a Splash. I'll keep you updated, and get pictures posted soon!

Sadly