The Ladies

"The Ladies" is the term of endearment we use to refer to the chickens, AKA Maude, Lottie and Wanda.  We use this often, in sentences such as, "Did you feed the ladies?" and "The ladies are at the back door" and "The ladies are pooping on the picnic table." As you can see, the ladies are always up to something. 

Maybe because we're first timers when it comes to chickens, we find everything they do amusing and interesting.  They're great at parties, too. Stick a few city dwellers in front of chickens and they'll be entertained for hours. Somewhat less amusing is the large number of flies that their excrement attracts to our yard, but they more than make up for it with their antics. 

Their personalities have also started to come through. Wanda (left) is the food whore. She will come running all the way across the yard if she thinks you have something to feed her. Lottie (top right- we were having a moment) is the friendliest and smartest. In the hypothetical game of "Which One Would You Eat if you HAD To," Lottie gets saved every time.  Right now Maude (below) would be the bird of choice, and not just because she has whiskers and crazy orange eyes.  She's just a little...off, and kind of a pain in the ass bird. Every single day she manages to get herself stuck in the pumpkin patch, even though Wanda and Lottie manage to get out just as they got in - through the gap in the fence.  I have several scratches on my legs from having to crawl in there, catch her, and free her from her pumpkin prison. 

Don't worry, though, nobody's getting eaten. They're too amusing, even when they're being naughty. Besides, we haven't even gotten any eggs yet!  Egg watch begins August 15. 

Cat TV

The Hens Leave the House

Now that our girls are almost full grown, we decided it was time to let them out of the confines of their Eglu and run. I was very excited, as I had visions of them happily chasing each other around the yard, flapping their wings in freedom, and otherwise acting like 7 year olds at recess. However, chickens are, well, chicken. The first couple days they would hesitantly walked outside the run door, looked around, and run back inside. Lottie (black) and Wanda (yellow) circled the coop once and then laid down next to it. Maude refused to leave at all the second day. 

 

This was frustrating. I was offering these chickens the world of my backyard - bugs! dirt! grass! - and all they wanted was the comfort of their run. They've slowly come around, but unfortunately the place they honed in on was the pumpkin patch. We let them have a few days of freedom in the patch, but they were destroying the leaves, so we are going to fence in the patch to keep them out. The fence has been bought and will hopefully get put up today, so until then the hens are in lockdown. 

The funniest thing the "ladies" do is take a dirt bath. They dig a hole in the soft dirt of the pumpkin patch, roll themselves around until they are completely covered in dirt, and then just wallow there like pigs in mud.  Here is a video of Wanda and Maude demonstrating this wacky behavior:

One month later...

and they're big girls now!  Check out the pics from today:

They've left the Nest!

Yesterday we moved the chicks from our house to theirs. They still can't (or won't) hop up or down the ladder, so one of us has to crawl into the run (an amusing site as the entrance is maybe 20" x 20" and flush with the ground) to put them in and out. Here are some pics of the girls (and other interested parties) in their first hour of outdoor time:

More chick pics

Shake Your Tailfeather

Lottie, Wanda and Maude are three weeks old today. They're growing up so fast! I can't believe how their feathers are coming in! I still have them in their box in the house, as every chicken guide has different advice as to when they can go outside for the first time. I've read everything from two weeks to six weeks, so I figure I'll split the difference and put them outside during the day once they're four weeks old. 

Overall they're kind of flighty and not the cuddliest of pets, but they are very entertaining and they should be great fun to watch once they can free range in the yard. They're much calmer about us having our hands in the cage now, and they love to eat from our fingers, but they've taken to shrieking and violently flapping their wings when we pick them up. Hopefully when we can feed more treats they will be more amenable to our attentions.