Which came first?

For us, it was definately the chicken.

I decided when I was a little girl that I wanted chickens.  My dad, on every trip back to the motherland known as Philadelphia, drives us by the house where he buried his pet chicken in the wall.  Apparently people used to give their children chickens for Easter and my dad both received and lost an Easter chicken.  He decided to bury his chicken in a wall outside his home.  So, since hearing that story, I think I always wanted a chicken.  I don't intend on burying my chickens in any wall.

So for my 27th birthday, my husband agreed to let me get chickens.  He even offered to build the coop.  Beginning sometime in September, he started designing and building.  After discussing logistics and predator-proofing, we had a good design and he started the labor process.  It took nearly nine months, but I eventually got a great coop and run for the chickens I would order!  The coop is named "Coop de ville." It has a sign which we intended to paint, but never got around to it (what with me birthing a baby and all).

I decided to order five little "bitties" from a nice farm up north.  I paid a whole quarter to have the five "sexed"...I only wanted females.  The farm only claimed an 80% success rate in sexing the bitties.  Boy and girl baby chickens don't have discernable boy and girl parts.  So, five bitties with an 80% success rate.  You do the math.

So, our babies arrived in May of 2009.  They were mailed overnight special delivery.  I went to the post office to get the babies and they were the cuuuuuutest things I'd ever seen!  I got a Dominique ("Dumpling"), a Buff Orpington ("Yolko Moira"...her full Christian name), and Three Easter Eggers ("Nugget" "Noodle" and "Biscuit").  The bitties lived in a warmed box in our house for about eight weeks.  The dog and cat loved the bitties.  I have picture proof.





We had great success.  The bitties grew into pullets (which are females that aren't a year old). Well, almost all of the bitties grew into pullets.  Again, see the success at sexing rate.  Our Biscuit decided to grow into a rooster.

We don't take kindly to roosters.  Roosters do not limit their crowing to mornings, as Foghorn Legohorn may suggest.  They crow all the time. Because we live inside the city, we felt it best to send Biscuit to a farm where he could crow as much as he liked.  We took Biscuit to a nice chicken farm and traded him for a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, whom we named Poppyseed.  Poppyseed was a bit younger than our ladies and she never quite assimilated into the flock.  As far as pecking orders go, Dumpling is the top.  Poppyseed was the bottom.  Poppyseed died.  But that is another post for another time.

Our chickens lay delicious eggs.  Once they started laying, which was around 4 months old, we started getting about an egg a day from each hen.  Two eggs are brown, one is green and one is blue.  The easter eggers are aptly named, as they lay different colored eggs.

Most people are very suprised to know that hens lay eggs regardless of whether a rooster is present. A rooster is good for two things: baby chickens and protection.  A rooster can be more vicious than a Michael Vick pitbull.  (Our Biscuit didn't hang around long enough to get vicious but he was definately the man in charge.)  Without a rooster, you get unfertilized eggs.  Unfertilized, delicious eggs.

Our ladies have grown into beautiful hens.  Well, the ladies minus Poppyseed. I will blog about the individual chickens in individual posts.  They each deserve an in-depth biography.