Dust Bath

It was wet and rainy today, so the girls decided to have a nice, long, relaxing dust bath.

Lavender started to lay again! She layed her first egg, in months, on Memorial Day. Her eggs are the little green ones. It's so nice to have green eggs again!

Spring Chicken

Signs of Spring

My Easter Egger bantam hen, Lavender, is broody!

It's cute, but also kind of sad.

I don't have a rooster and I can't have anymore chickens, so she's sitting on 2 golfballs.

She takes very good care of her golfball babies.
She talks to them, tucks them carefully underneath her and warns the other hens to 'stay away!'.
I've explained to her that I have enough golfballs and we don't need anymore, but she won't listen to me.
I also warned her that if they hatch, she had better take good care of them and not let the golfballs roll around and get underfoot.

These are the nice green eggs she layed when she wasn't broody.

More signs of Spring!

American Cancer Society daffodils. I always buy 5 bunches. I keep 2 and give 1 to my grandma,1 to my mom, and 1 to a friend.

I started some seeds last Friday. They sprouted!

Peep Peep

I haven't written about my pet chickens in a long time, so...

This post will be all about them.

They arrived in a box at the post office on Aug. 1st, 2007.

I was expecting them to arrive the next day, but the post office called at 10pm and asked me to 'please pick up your peeping package'.

Sadly, one chick, a bantam barred rock, died from shipping injuries.

This is their first picture. From the right-clockwise: Pippa(Sebright Bantam), Honey(Delaware),Zela(Australorp),Butter(Delaware), and Lavender(EE Bantam).

They were very sleepy after hatching, being popped into a box, and traveling through the postal service.

I love how Pippa used to sleep on her head!

They grew up fast! Here they are at one week old.

Pippa's such a fashion model!

Here they are 2 weeks old.

At three weeks they're starting to look a little ratty. Poor pre-teenagers! Just wait it gets much worse. They lose all their baby fuzz and get their first big girl feathers.

At five weeks, Honey is starting to look like a big girl, but there's a long way to go. She's still a little chick!

At six weeks, they enjoy a juicy tomato and hopping up onto my back!

Here they are a seven weeks. The big girls, Honey, Butter and Zela really start to grow, leaving the bantams, Pippa and Lavender, in the dust.

The big girls are standard size chickens.

Bantams are usually miniature versions of standard size chickens. Like if you have a toy or miniature poodle, there's a standard size too.

However, Pippa is an exception to the bantam rule.

Sebrights are true bantams and there isn't any standard size (large) chicken of her breed.

Sebright bantams were bred by Sir John Sebright in the early 1800's.

They are the only chicken breed named after a man.

(You never know - this could be a winning Jeopordy question some day! File this info away.)

Well, this is a long enough post. More some other day.