Plymouths and Orpingtons and Sussex Oh My!

Well, I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd take a few minutes and tell you about our chickens.  We started with four chicks from a local Feed and Farm store.  This was last year in late May.

Two teeny tiny Buff Orpingtons, two itty bitty Speckled Sussex and one itsy bitsy little boy.  They were growing feathers and Oscar was learning how to walk.  Really what he wanted to do was squeeze one.  

It's almost hard to believe that those chicks gave us our first egg only months later on December twenty sixth.     We had a lot of fun with our hens.  Sometimes they would show up in funny places like the stroller seat.  Or maybe even one might end up in someones arms as they went down the sliding board.  They gave us four eggs almost everyday!  

Then our most adventurous speckled sussex when on a walk outside the fence and she never came back.  In April one of our Buffs, I think her name is Girt, she went broody.  This means all the wanted to do was sit on her eggs.  The thing is, her eggs aren't fertilized!  She could sit there all day and night and nothing would ever come of it.  We took turns taking her out of he coop and putting her in front of food and water.  

Here she is looking quite dug in and she's not got even one egg under her.  The my mom had a great idea.  Why not buy some fertilized eggs and put them under her!  It was a win win idea, Girt would get the chicks her instincts were demanding and we'd add some hens to our flock.  The very next night Girt was violently taken by an animal in the night.  

Her feathers were strewn across the grass and you could see a place at the fence where her feathers were caught.  Some time and I can't exactly remember when, our other Buff went for a walk as well.  So now we only had one of our first four left.  When my mom bought the fertilized eggs, she also bought three pullets.  Hens who are not laying yet.  Two Barred Plymouth Rocks and one more Speckled Sussex.  

Iggy is our pet now.  Isn't she beautiful?  She comes to the door at night.  She does not want to sleep in the coop at night and who can blame her!?  She sleeps in the bathroom and gives us one egg a day.

The new pullets sleep in the lilacs.  My mom put this board and bamboo stalk in there for them to roost on.  The new pullets are wild chickens.  They do not like people like our old chickens did.  They do not come running when they see the white scrap bucket.  They do run away when I try to take their picture. 

The only pullet who has been named is the other Sussex, Snickers.  The Plymouths seen here are just not tame enough to name I guess.  The other hens had names like, Peanut, Fluffy and Iggy.

All this rope is what holds up the netting that has so far protected from avian foe.  

This is Murphy my parents rescue Golden Doodle.  He very much wants to eat a chicken, but so far has behaved himself.  

We tried to fashion a makeshift incubator from a box and a special lamp.  But it was too hard to control the temperature.  So last Friday I picked up four Ameraucana chicks.  

I can't wait to find their first egg!

Here is an audio recording of Isaac last year talking about the chickens on a local radio show for kids.