The days are short but when the sun comes out, there is nothing better
than a bright, crisp, fall day. The girls relish these days - spending
most of the day foraging under the apple tree and sunning themselves
in their favorite spots. Stormy is mixing in better now, although she
is still a black sheep of sorts. Ms. Coco has been laying one
beautiful egg a day - today she decided to change locations and lay in
the first box. I don't quite understand how she can produce an entire
egg every day... I feel like I can't give her enough treats. I still
laugh when i go to pet her and she does the mating squat-stomp stomp
dance - which Aria has started doing too! We think Aria will start
laying soon. I'm excited. I would be happy with one egg every couple
of weeks - I can't help thinking about how tremendously draining and
hard it is on the body to create an egg every single day. Things to
be mindful of...
Stormy still follows Cedar around the yard - I'm not sure if she is
trying to challenge him or following the leader, but it is funny to
watch. Cedar just wants to sun himself and can't be bothered with his
fans. Its taken a while but Stormy is no longer the freaked out,
flighty, angry bird she was when we first rescued her. She was
attacking the girls so much, we thought we would have to rehome her.
We're glad she's settled in now.
I love looking forward to not only collecting eggs in the mornings but
to opening the coop and being greeted by my girls every day. I'm very
thankful to be able to have this experience.
After a night of cleaning up after Cedar, the ballistic escape artist/shaker of peaceful home - dog, I woke up tired and stressed. And to the sound of Coco making more of her loud laying sounds. They sounded a bit different this morning so I ran to the coop, let the girls out and checked the laying boxes. In an instant the disappointments of last night disappeared as I saw the most beautiful egg in the world. Coco's first egg. Beautiful, perfect, light brown and still warm. I held it in my hand and was surprised by my eyes getting watery. I felt proud, happy, thankful, a little sad and most of all, in awe. Proud of my beautiful Coco, of course she would lay the perfect egg on her first try. Happy and thankful to be so close to the source - to be able to know and love our girls. Sad for many reasons... and in awe of how amazing it all is. I have to go hold Coco for a while now.
babies - Aria and Cocoa
Originally uploaded by konikim
One sunny Spring day, we took a drive to the feed store in Bothell after reading everything about raising chickens. Just to look. That was what we had PLANNED, but... There was no way we could go home without a chick or two... or three, after seeing those adorable puffs of feathers. We did however, manage to go home with only three of the breeds they had available.
We had already decided on two of the breeds from researching library books and websites. The Americauana and the Buff Orpington were chosen for their good egg laying qualities, pleasant personalities and availability. It took us a long time to decide on our third chick - it was difficult to think clearly with hundreds of peeps and so much cuteness around us. After researching through all the resouces in the feed store, we decided on the Black Sex-Link to round out the trio.
The “girls” rode home in their fancy transporter (a small cardboard box with wood chips) as we cranked the heat in the car trying to keep them warm enough - around 90 degrees. The sun was blazing, the heat was blasting, we were sweating, the girls were peeping and peeping and peeping... and that was the start of it all.
We named our girls for the next several days and ended up with:
Aria (Americana)
Butter (Buff Orpington)
Coco aka "Sexy" (Black Sex-link)
We built a home for them out of cardboard, plexiglass, bamboo rods, heatlamp, ducttape, wood chips and toilet paper rolls. We would later add a cardboard tunnel, multiple roosts, toys, patch of fresh grass, and a bottle with bugs for entertainment.
The next week we went back to the feed store for a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte. We named her "Baby peachyfoot" for her tiny stature and peach colored feet. On the long hot trip home, we noticed that her bottom was “pasted-up,” (known as pastybutt) and needed to be cleared. Baby would probably have died at the feed store over night had we not picked her to bring home. We used a warm wet towel to clean her and a huge sack of goo blasted free and splatted on my hand. That was our introduction to chicken poop.
