Four Little Chickies

Well, I guess they're no longer little chickies...

But big news! One of them laid her first egg.



This is a major milestone.

Congratulations!

I bet it was the fat black chickie. Hen.

There are three black chickens, and one of them is about three times as fat as the other two.

She's very cute.

And fat.

Also, that is not actually where I found the egg.

Obviously.

Woohoo, eggs from free-range chickens! I ate it for breakfast with mozzarella cheese.

Mmm.

Perfume for the Lay-tays

Lady Gaga, Mrs. Love-it, and Marcelle have lived with my for several months now and still have yet to lay a single egg among the three of them. They are old. And fat! Alas, I have no delicious egg-scramble, but they are well-loved regardless. Running is an awkward process, and their latest feat of cuteness is poking their heads into a flowering bush to get the aroma. In essence, putting perfume on.

I love the sweet and musty odor that farm animals carry, but right now my hens smell quite divine.

Meanwhile, the little chickies are learning how to give themselves a dirt bath.

My Little Egg-Butts

When I first created this blog, I had just brought home my first hive of bees and three little ducklings. A few weeks earlier, three fat hens and five little chickies joined the family. Thus, the inspiration for the title came from the birds and the bees that were on my mind at the time.


One things I learned really fast: Ducks are dirty creatures. Even with my friend's warnings and my dad saying that they are "the most damned dirtiest things," I couldn't help but take home the fluffy white duckling and two gray-brown ones. A girl was keeping them in her apartment and realized that, yep, they grow! Ducks need space to move, water to swim in. So free ducks, cool. They smell, they're loud and obnoxious and reasonably unintelligent, but I'm glad I have them. They're a nice addition.


I became especially attached to my little "egg-butts," as my friend [the Chicken Whisperer] called them, really quickly. When I go out in the mornings to let them out of the coop nowadays, they always run out to greet me and swarm my feet, making their cute little chirping noises.


Anyways, I've been away from home for a few days now, and I come back to find one of my little reds dead in a grocery bag with her neck snapped. Reason is unknown, but my mother said she found her in the pen like that. A little conspicuous, isn't it? If it was a hawk or a raccoon or something, why would they just leave their kill untouched? It was surprisingly heart-breaking--I've had chickens that have died in the past, but there's something about one of yours that you've raised since it was a new hatchling dying... I buried her out by the bees, put some flowers over the grave. Oh, my little red.

The chicken coop now has a net over top of it, better to protect my chicks from predatory birds, even if that wasn't the case. You can get free netting down by the docks, if you live anywhere near an ocean.

Here, meet Blackie!