We’ve had some ups and downs with chickens this summer, so I’m delighted, although still sort of in shock, that neither of my grown sons realized that if you left eggs in one of the coops for a week, with a rooster around, you were going to get…..chicks. Not one of those neat little clutches where all the chicks hatch within 24 hours, nope, not us. We’ve been having one or two chicks a day, every day, for the last three weeks. It’s been a party! They’re adorable and I’m exhausted.
Our chickens are mostly a variety called Silkies, known for being good, friendly pets. They lay medium sized eggs that range from white to a medium tan, the perfect eggs for baking, especially because ours eat a very healthy diet and get to free range in the garden, so they have beautiful deep orange yolks.
That’s Birthday Girl, in the video at that top. She’s our only named chick. We started calling her that because she hatched on my birthday and it stuck. She’s adorable and feisty; the only one to make it to the top of the big chicks picnic table so far. In addition to Birthday Girl, we kept four additional chicks who range from two to four weeks old. We sent more than a dozen off to live at a local farm.
Help us name our new additions? Leave your ideas in the comments and we will obsess over them at the family dinner table the next few nights until we settle on just the right names. Bragging rights to the ones who get chosen.
This is chicken A, the oldest. She’s very sweet. She looks white right now, but I wonder if there might not be a bit of orangey-buff waiting to develop, as her dad is a buff rooster.
Chicken B is what’s called a partridge. I’m not a chicken geneticist, but I’m guessing this one (and you’ll see another in a sec who looks almost identical) is a cross between our black hen and the buff rooster. Also, very sweet, but I can’t convince her to stay out of her food dish!
Chicken C looks like she’ll turn out to be a Blue, a pretty slate gray chicken. She’s not quite as adventurous as birthday girl, but she did surprise me by flying gracefully down from the coop yesterday when I turned my back for about 5 seconds to change the water.
Chicken D is another partridge. We’ve never had this color variety before, so we’re really excited to see how she’ll turn out.
Of course I say “she” knowing full well that more than 50% of hatches are usually roosters. We’ve been lucky before this, having only Biff turn up in the 3 clutches we’ve hatched. So fingers crossed.
And, SURPRISE! In the last 48 hours we’ve had three more chicks hatch. We thought these eggs were too old, and the moms’ interest in hatching them waning. But, we decided to give them a few more days to see what would happen. Only two of the chicks made it after hatching (I take these losses very personally, and it’s hard to say that). These two are headed to a neighbor who wants to add to her flock when they’re old enough, but they are delightful to hang out with for now. They run around peeping until they suddenly fall asleep wherever they’re standing.
I’m looking forward to your help with naming the newbies. We deserve a little fun before we get down to the serious stuff this week.
Remember to encourage your friends to register to vote if they haven’t already. Kansas saw massive increases in voter registration ahead of the vote to prevent the legislature from prohibiting abortion. We win when we register and vote!
We’re in this together,
Joyce
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