Chicken Day

This morning we drove up north an hour to Sonoma to buy some chickens. This after spending a couple of days calling around to places to find the breeds we wanted, which was harder than it seemed like it ought to be.

And here they are, clockwise from the upper left: Carole (King), Liza (Minelli), Debbie (Reynolds), and Joan (Jett)

I wanted to name them all "Chicken," but Noel felt they ought to have real names, and preferably on a theme (female singers, in this case).

Carole is a Buff Orpington, which is about the mellowest chicken you've ever met. And as soon as they were settled in the travel box and the heating pad I'd brought along was warming the floor, she settled down and fell asleep.

I don't know if the human Carole King ever spent a lot of time socked out face-down on the floor, but it looks like this Carole will.

And here's her glamour shot when we got home, checking out the chicken habitat where they will spend the next few months.

Liza and Debbie are both Ameraucanas, and they are feisty. Debbie spent nearly the whole trip home squawking about something, which may have been that she was thirsty and hungry, because as soon as they found the water and food they were face-first in there, so no glam shots of those two. They're pretty easy to tell apart because Debbie is the noisier of the two, and also she has a dark spot on her head.

And Joan, a Barred Plymouth Rock, is in between. Not quite as nearly-comatose as Carole, but not quite up to the energy levels of the Broadway Babes. She's also very curious, pecking at every new thing like the waterer, the side of the box, the thermometer.

And now I'm going to go make them a little chicken gym with some nectarine branches, so they have places to hop and play.

(The chicken habitat has pine chip bedding in it, and a towel over the top of that for the first week or so, until the chicks get old enough to not stuff themselves with the pine bedding until they die.)

Technorati Tags: chickens, urban farming

posted by ayse on 03/29/08