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 Spies on The Girls

See Arriauna (orange), Hecky and Henny (black) in front of the eglu door, but safely in the run. See Mr. Fox (red and white with triangular face) sneaking closer from the upper left. One second later the girls spotted him and dashed into their eglu house. This photo was taken through the kitchen window screen.

I walked out to watch him from the top of the back steps. He was not frightened by my presence. We stared at each other for a few minutes. The girls (bless their dumb little hearts) came out of the eglu when they heard me talking to him. He sat and watched them for awhile. I told him to leave and moved toward him. He yawned! Finally he strolled away, stopping to pee on some weeds. He slowly walked to the back by the compost pile where he usually hops up on the hay bales surrounding it to scramble over the fence. This time he went not over the fence but into the Austrees. I saw him walking the labyrinth. He was not doing the path properly so I threw a handful of pebbles at him and he scampered out of sight which appeared to put him over the edge toward the creek. I was not confident that he had really gone so I stayed out there for awhile.

He's young and curious. I like him and wish we could all be friends BUT I know he would kill the chickies just for sport if not for food. His regular presence is foiling my simple plans to expand the chickie's foraging territory.

The intermediate solution is to plant a tray of grass to give them. I'll keep a couple going to alternate.

Eglu arrives

Eglu arrives

Out all day running errands and keeping appointments. Called Camille to confirm I would be home in time for us to immediately go to Colorado College for a talk on the book ‘Winkie’, the teddy bear who was held and charged as a terrorist. She slowly said “I don’t think you will want to leave immediately” I thought for only a second then shouted “The eglu has arrived.” She said “Maaaybeeee.” I hurried home to find two huge brown cardboard boxes blocking the path to my front porch.

The delivery person had brought these boxes through the gate and up the walk. The large square box suspiciously marked ‘Pink Chick’ would not fit between the two heavy planters at the crossing paths at the base of the front porch steps. I eagerly started to open the ‘Pink Chick’ box but realized it would be better if I took the time to go into the house and get a pair of pliers to pull the long copper staples. Camille started opening the tall box that I knew would reveal the run. It was upside down and one set of staples was missing and replaced by wide clear tape sort of half-heartedly closing the seams and flaps. Obviously something had happened to that box. Was anything missing? We checked the contents. Only the four curved run wall, the end wall with gate and the predator barrier for the end wall. I ordered run pegs but they weren’t in the run box.

Oh, surely they were in the ‘Pink Chick’ box. We turned to open it. Staples removed, pull the eglu. Nope, didn’t move. Remove a large packing triangle. Pull the eglu. Nope, didn’t move. Remove another large packing triangle. Wow, this thing is well packed. Pull the eglu. Note, didn’t move. Ok, tilt the box, then pull. Hooray, a hot pink eglu is hatched. Oh, how exciting to twist the handle to open the egg door revealing all the gifts inside” a Glub and a Grub; the waterer and feeder, now stuffed with a rolled up dark green shade cloth, a sack of green plastic snaps, 2 different sized roosts and a packet of information. No need to read that until we are totally stymied. Definitely no run pegs. Next look at the packing slip. No pegs listed so hopefully no pegs lost. I will call and confirm.

We played with all the parts and pieces, opened and closed the eglu door, then realized we were late for the lecture so off we dashed.

It was fun to drive back in that evening. When the car lights swung around and flashed across a hot pink mound in the yard.