Oh Chicken

Chickens. . .

Our flock has exploded.

What sparked this? Is Lori nuts? That's still to be determined. . . . but the real catalyst was that we lost one of our original chickens, Penny, and our other three girls went from laying an egg a day to an egg every three days. These girls are pets, so sending them to the "farm" was not an option. Instead, I decided it was time to add some new layers and fresh faces to our flock.

With that my friends I have become indoctrinated into the the crazy chicken lady club.

I figured that since I was going to add some fresh layers why not have some cute minis, and while we were at it, why not have some a the store too. So now we have our three originals, 5 mediums, and 7 littles (these littles were a last minute addition due to me attending a livestock auction. . . . Really, Lori went to a livestock auction? Yep. I made an adventure out of it. . went with Em and friends and had a fabulous time. I went for two, came home with 5 . .. I was totally meant to be a farmer in sticksville somewhere. . . and I digress). . .

So. . . we have a coop at home for the bigs and mediums, a chicken tractor at home for the littles, and Brian is building a coop at the store. I' m waiting for everyone to get big enough to integrate and then I'll be able to break down my maze of temporary chicken wire fencing. Classy, I know.

Now for the introductions:

Our three originials: (l to r) Chippy, Henny, and Big Bird

The 5 new mediums in one shot.

Front is Nemo, back (clockwise) Percy, Charmagne, Susie, and Paulie is on the far right.

Front to Back:

Nemo, Charmagne (Silver Laced Wyandotte), and Percy (Barred Rock)

(l to r) Susie (Americauna. . she'll lay Easter Egg colored eggs. Pastel blues and greens), Percy, Paulie's butt, and Nemo

Littles:

We have two Frizzle Cochin Bantams -- Shirley and Chotchki

Four Polish White Crested Bantams -- Elizabeth Taylor and three currently unnamed. I am planning on re homing two.

One Mottled Cochin Bantam -- Mottle

Pictured are Shirley (front), Mottle and two of the Pollocks

Elizabeth Taylor. . Lizzie for short Cute little Mottle.

She's by far my favorite addition.

She won't get much bigger and is very docile.

Because we have so many chickens at the house I needed to expand the chicken "holding area". I built a cute little fence and gate to keep the chickens in and keep the dogs out. Pictured below, our little rooster Paulie demonstrates how effective my gate is. . . . .

it's his new roost.

Paulie likes to sit on the fence, and Cocka Cocka Koo. . . .his doodle is definitely broken.

When I say Paulie is our "little" rooster I mean it. Here he is with two of the new mediums. The girls aren't full grown, but he is. He's about 1/3 of their size, and won't get much bigger. He was part of a batch of mixed bantams I bought to sell at the store.

I think he's a Bantam Americauna.

He's little but all attitute.

"Who are you calling little!?!"
I'm going to split all of the newbies up once they're big enough to be integrated into the general population. 1/2 of the littles and 1/2 of the mediums will reside in their new deluxe coop at the store.