The Girls Have Moved

The girls have moved to Franktown, a community north of Colorado Springs. They didn't just pack up and leave in the night.

Here is the story:

My house is for sale and I am moving to South Carolina. I put a winterized chicken waterer for sale on Craigs List. An interested lady emailed me. Ironically her name is Deanne and her email address is Deanne@deannesgarden or close. She is a part of http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M28418. I love these cosmic coincidences. We talked on the phone. She expressed interest in my girls. She has something like 100 chickens, many of fancy bloodlines. She even has a quarantine area (not for bird flu) for those who don't feel well. I didn't ask if she gives them chicken soup. Hildegarde was not feeling well and Deanne was willing to try to bring her back to good health. It helped that she has an Americauna rooster who might marry Hildegarde. Deanne drove her big honkin' truck to pick up the girls. They rode in the cab of course. Since then she has kept me posted about their progress. Hildegarde sat on a nest for the first few days. Deanne put some eggs under her thinking she was broody, but apparently not. My 4 girls come to greet Deanne when she comes out to feed and she calls them by name: Hildegard, Rosie, Lacey and Goldilocks. They joined right in to the larger family and have made many new friends, telling them about life in the big city.

I miss them but am so thankful they have a great home!

Henry has been disguised as Henrietta!

As if the CROWING wasn't enough, the photo of (her) large red comb did it. I submitted my question to the experts at the Backyard Chicken Magazine Forum. They confirmed my worst suspicions. As they wrote "I'm sure you have a Roo!" I called Cheryl in Calhan, from whom I bought Henrietta. She has no more Ameracaunas now, but will be hatching some green eggs next week. She will call me. Sign up now if you want to go to Calhan with me and get kissed by pygmy goats!

Meet the new chickie girls

After losing my beautiful, sweet, innocent hens it was just unbearable to be without chickies. I acted on a Craigs List notice sent to me by Lizzie. Less than a week after losing the girls, I drove to Calhan and on and on down country roads, past a small airport, turned right at an old Russian Orthodox church and on and on until I turned into the third green gate atop a windblown hill. Sheryl, a pleasant, smiling lady come out to greet me. She was follow out of the house by only 1 of their 5 dogs. She led a tour of the farm. All the animals were thrilled to have company. There was the brown and white cow who came loping out and chased a goat who had a grinning glint in her eye. Sweet brown and white pygmy goats jumped up on us and wanted kisses. They got them. There was also a myotonic goat....the fainting ones. Sheryl said it sometimes goes rigid and will fall over if bumped. They keep him in his own quarters so he is safe. Mischievous guests are not allowed to visit him. Following us on the tour was George, a beautiful peacock. He jumped on top of the chicken house, leaned out over the roof and peered into the open door. The young chickens were in two groups, one of 50 fuzzy chicks, the second house of 30 older ones with some feathers showing through their fuzz. There were not 3 baby chicks of the breeds I wanted so I got 3 of the older chicks. They are funny looking scraggly young teenagers, both they show promise of being beautiful adults. One is an Americauna, like my beautiful Arriauna, altho the new gal, Henrietta, is mostly brown with black and brown shawl. Also her personality is not timid. In fact she is the pack leader, somewhat of a bully! One is a Light Brahma, originally from China via India. She is on her way to looking like the standard. She will be large, white with black collar and black tail feathers. She gracefully lays around looking like a swan floating on a lake. She reminds me of Paris Hilton. I call her Swan. One is a Silver Laced Wyandotte. If she grows up to look like 'the pictures' she will be mostly white with a black shawl collar and black tail feathers. Right now her coloring is opposite. She is black with small white spots. Her head is mottled black & yellow. Her eyes are ringed with eyeglass frames, including black lines to the ear pieces. I call her Lacey. They are currently living in the back bedroom. They won't move outside until they are older and the Taj Mahal is fox proofed. We truly a ThreeChickenFarm!

Fox vs Taj Mahal

Photos show Mr. Fox stalking on the outside of our Taj Mahal, and then Mr. Fox on outside left of the Taj as Arriauna and Hecky stand in snow atop the run. [The big black blobs behind the run are a compost bin and sacks of leaves for insulation.]

Mr. Fox has met his match. First he stood on the path between the house and the Taj Mahal hen pen. I was looking down at the action from the kitchen window which is why the photos are taken through 2 window panes and a screen. The hens were in their covered run, backlit with a light bulb, so he could see them easily. I don’t know if he made a noise, like ‘Heh, heh, come here, girls, I’ll give you a cookie”, but those sweethearts came marching out to greet him. Then he began to run around the outer edge of the pen, no doubt chuckling and saying “It won’t be long, my pretties”. They recognized him as the bad guy he is and they began to run. They all made a lap around the pen; hens on the inside, fox on the outside. Arriauna and Hecky flew up onto the run. That really excited Mr. Fox. He ran around to the west outside. He stared at Arriauna for a moment then leaped straight at her. He bounced off the double wire wall. I hope he had a wire imprint on his nose. At this point I intervened before he got too frenzied that he might figure out how to climb over the top.

Arriauna's First Egg

The girls are celebrating atop their run. The sun shines on Arriauna! Today she laid her first egg. It is a lovely light aqua color. Very hard to capture the delicate color for your viewing pleasure. There were no white eggs in the house for photo comparison. She is 17 ½ weeks old.

Arriauna is growing into a beauty

Arriauna Ameracauna is such a special chickie girl. Do you remember her from the ThreeChickenFarm blog masthead, a tiny chick measured against a clothespin? Now she is a beautiful redhead with a bit of blond-in-the-brain. She has a love of life and would rather fly than walk. Most days find her atop the run more often than along side it, pecking the ground with her sisters. She watches the squirrels in the tree overhead. She watches the Flight For Life heliocopters traveling to nearby Penrose Hospital. Yesterday she listened and spotted high-flying geese. Yes, they were flying north.

When the other three hens rest on the roost in their run, they all face the same direction. Not Arriauna, invariably she will squeeze in between them, facing the other way. She just clucks to a different drummer.

Attack of the Killer Vegetables

“What are they?” squawked Hecky. “Where did they come from?” peeped Arriauna. “I saw Mom put them in here, so they can’t be bad,” offered Henny. “Let’s just freeze in position and see if they move,"whispered Queen B. The girls are very cautious about unknown things outside their area, but even more cautious when four odd shaped things are inside their run. Henny, the more mature levelheaded chickie girl advanced on one of the interlopers. Actually it was more like a canta-louper. I had placed a corncob, two cantaloupe slices, a cornhusk and a tomato inside the door of their run. At first they all ran to the opposite end, away from these unknown objects. Little by little they slowly came forward. Arriauna pecked at the cantaloupe, maybe drawn to the color similar to her own feathers. Queen B stepped on the tomato as she moved to pierce the green cornhusk with her beak. Henny and Hecky are always interested in stealing whatever Queen B has in her beak so those three darted and bobbed around for awhile. Later I saw the tomato had been reduced to a small dirt-coated blob. The cornhusk was in a zillion strips. The cantaloupes were history.

Arriauna's fan mail

My beautiful Ameracauna chick, Arriauna, received her first fan mail. It was delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, postmarked ‘Denver.’ Down our dirt street, in his little white truck, came the postman. Among the bills and the junk mail was a postcard addressed to Arriauna Ameracauna. I showed it to her and read the message aloud. She is very shy and bashful. When I asked her permission to write about it in our ThreeChickenFarm blog she lowered her head and blinked. I took that to mean ‘yes’. Her private life is about to become public. You saw it here first!

“Delicate Miss, Large feet & small body, Your ‘headcap’ is fetching Will you ever be naughty? Loverly girl with a sweet Peach-tinged beak Do keep me informed of Your changes each week.” XXXX A Secret Admirer

The paper incident

The paper incident

While new chick, Arriauna, was in her separated see-thru area I placed a folded 8”x8” piece of paper on the floor of her area for better footing. Her little feet didn’t work well on the wire floor. After I removed the divider I left the paper. It was under the light so Arriauna really liked it. Perfect, I thought. Wrong.

When I returned from an afternoon of art shows and a late lunch, I found a major corner section of the paper had been maliciously shredded. The only remaining shred of evidence was being sat upon by Ms. B. Rock. All four chickies were just sitting around, looking innocent. I fully expected to hear them humming as they looked out the window. Blame was not my worry…sick stomachs and ’pasting up’ was my worry.

The coop was cleaned up. New corncob litter was laid down…though it’s not deep enough to protect Arriauna’s feet from the wire across the entire floor. Today I’ll buy more.

Yes, I got chick #4

Yes, I got chick #4

Went to the farmstore ONLY to get a new plastic quart waterer that will fit thru the birdcage door. BUT they had some new chicks.

I had to have her. I will NOT change my blog name to 4chickenfarm. She is beautiful, an Ameracauna...the kind I wanted initially. Her fluff is rich vicuna coat butterscotch with a black saddle and Cleopatra eye makeup. She will lay blue and/or green eggs. I made a see thru divider wall in the cage to keep her safe during a day or two of introductions. Within an hour she squirmed under it to join the others. They seem to like her.

It's been 3 hours and I think they are tired of her. I see them peck at her a bit so I separated them again, secured the divider and will let them all get more accustomed to each other from a little distance.

Another few hours later. She has peeped so loud to get across the barrier to the others, that I put her over there again. I hope they won't hurt her. She just wants to be close to her own kind. She walks close to them, sort of bumps up under them acting like a chick under a mother hen, I suppose.

Looked in on the chickies again. They were all cuddled up together. New little gal is quiet and happy in her new family. I'm happy for her.

The new Ameracauna chick is named Arriauna...Arriauna Ameracauna! We’ll have to practice spelling it at home before she stands at the blackboard in front of her schoolmates.