Chicken Sisters

Our chickens came from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries and I'm sure they were all hatched in a huge incubator and surely separated by colors, but somehow these two Brahma "sisters" seem to know they are at very least the same breed and spend most of their time together.

The Bald Eagle (left) is a Dark Brahma and Goldilocks (right) is a Buff Brahma.  I wouldn't mind them all loose in the yard, but they are terribly destructive to my garden areas and the Easter egg hunting (looking for where they've hidden to lay their eggs) is...frustrating.  

I'll stop here before I start complaining about springtime :-o.

Baby Chick Camp

Last Saturday we went to Mt. Healthy Hatcheries in Cincinnati, OH, to pick up some day old chicks.  As we are down to just those three crazy bantam hens, The Crowing Hen and her "sisters", we decided it was time to bring in some laying hens.  I've never raised baby chicks before.  It's been fun so far :-).  

They are currently living in an old sheep water trough in the wash room of the Wool House and that's working out well.  Next week the plan is to move them to a larger cattle tank inside the old coop in the barn.  It's all cleaned out and I bet it's excited to be back in use after sitting idle for quite a few years now.

Today they got to do a short visit to the great outdoors.  They were a bit wary at first, but they built up confidence quickly.  The bars are too wide to hold them in so we need to do a little pen modification, but they stayed together and were easier to catch to go back inside than I feared they might be.

No chickens were harmed by Comby, who I think was mostly just curious.  We would NEVER let Bad Betsy get this close to anything with feathers :-o.