Hi. It’s me. Crazy chicken lady here. It’s been a while…
And I haven’t killed any yet!
I really had my doubts in the beginning…they were tiny. I had to literally clean the silky fluffy butts the first week home. But amazingly, they’ve grown up into full-size egg-laying chickens! Let’s meet them…
The Easter Eggers
Originally these gals all had marks on their heads that looked like letters…so we called them Big T (Mr T), Little T (Thelma), I (Irene)…and then there was Blob. We just went with that. Blob was the most outgoing, flew first and was the most social. We figured he was probably a rooster. Mr T was bigger than the rest of them, had darker beak and legs and hated to be held…must be a rooster. Thelma would run away and Irene ended up a different color than the rest. Nobody was laying yet so we figured they were probably ALL roosters.
And I don’t know why anyone else can’t tell these babies apart. It’s just obvious.
The Raptors (aka Anconas)
We started calling these two raptors because they were SO FAST! After we moved them out to the coop, we’d have a fun “raptor round up” party every night to get everyone put away for bed. Good times. Now they are known as Charlie and Blue in honor of Mason’s favorite movie.
The Fluffy-butts
So when you buy silkies, they always tell you, there’s no way to know if these are hens or roosters…so it’s really just the luck of the pick. Well I wasn’t there to pick. Mr. Fluffy Butt started crowing first….then so did Mrs. Fluffy butt a little later. Thank goodness they’re both smaller than the rest of the chickens and everyone seems to be getting along ok. Despite the crowing.
After a zillion dollars spent, we have eggs!
Just before we went on vacation, we finally had success! Well…the first couple of eggs were soft shells…google tells me that’s pretty common for when they start laying. But we didn’t know exactly who laid these couple of duds.
Then…tada! We had a real egg. And it was completely white. Which meant it had to be one of the raptors (the youngest by a few weeks!). I guessed that it was Blue…she became my favorite and would let me pet her. And the good girl laid it in the box!
Blue continued to lay an egg every few days while we were on vacation so I was able to crack them open and have my first eggs! Once August rolled around, we had another layer, then another, then another until all 6 girls were laying! We finally decided this was the case when we had a 6 egger day. Now we’re pretty much swimming in eggs! Haven’t bought any from the grocery story in over a month!
And ours are by far prettier…
The crazy bunch
Oh my goodness. This is so much fun! Love your chickens and your blog!