The Chickens Came Home to Roost
After a great deal of hot, exhausting, sweaty work—done mostly by my intrepid and valiant husband in 100-degree weather—we now have a working coop and chicken run and chickens to put in them! We spent today putting on some finishing touches, like installing the roost, filling in holes with dirt, etc. Ian built the person-size door to the chicken run today, even though we got the chickens last night and fenced them in. Putting all that chicken wire on was a big job and we worked right up until the deadline at 4 p.m., when had to go get the hens …
… which was a funny sort of adventure in that they had to be caught and put in a big cardboard box. They were hiding from the heat under a deck when we arrived and we had to coax them out. Fortunately their confident, courageous (former) owner caught them for us and then we put our box of hens into the back of the car. Chickens in a box. Weird. I’ve had chickens in grocery bags before, but never in a box!
The boys were and are pretty excited! Lucas wants to be very near them. He held one of them today for a few moments. The hens were a bit skittish yesterday evening, but they seem to be settling in.
We have four chicken breeds: clockwise from lower left, we have a Black Sussex, a Rhode Island Red, two Leghorns, and an Araucana at the bottom right. Good gracious, it’s hard to get good chicken pictures! They’re always moving!
We have some disagreement over their names, however. It seems we Wilsons are an opinionated bunch. Let me show you how:
| Sara’s Names | Ian’s Names | Lucas’s Names | Asher’s Names |
| Henrietta | Posh | Sunrise | Chicken 1 |
| Victoria | Ginger | Fireball | Chicken 2 |
| Beatrice | Scary | Midnight | Chicken 6 |
| Minerva | Sporty | Avalanche | Chicken 8 |
| Virginia | Baby | Snowdrift | Chicken 45 |
Probably, we’ll end up using Lucas’s names most of the time. Although, I’m pretty sure the girls don’t care, so maybe we can each maintain our own pet names for them.
See how my Ian has suffered this week. He’s a prince among chicken-coup builders! Oh, and extremely tough, super macho, and manly.
Here’s Henrietta/Posh/Sunrise/Chicken 1.
Mid-morning today we got two eggs, laid in the same little hollow in the leaf litter. This afternoon, we got three more eggs, including a green-shelled one from Henrietta/Posh/Sunrise/Chicken 1, our Araucana.
I think we’re going to have a bit of trouble at first telling the two white birds apart. We’ve noticed that one has a little scar on top of her comb and they have different combs (in their shape and in the direction the fall). But I’m pretty sure Lucas has switched their names on me a couple of times already. One of them, Sporty, of course, was the hardest to catch and get into the box for transport yesterday.
The chicken run we (Ian) built (I helped with the wire!) is an area far bigger than our five hens need, but we think we want to get more birds. Also, I’m not sure how hard they are going to be on our garden and landscaping when we let them out to range, and if they start doing major damage, I may want to keep them confined in their big-enough run most of the time. Some friends let their chickens out every evening for “happy hour.”
The hens are fascinating so far, and I LOVE the sounds they make. We’ve been feeding them kitchen scraps today and they’ve devoured everything we’ve given them. We’ve also sacrificed some of our worms from our worm farm to feed our hens. We want our girls to be well nourished and also to associate their new home with yummy food.
What an adventure we’ve embarked upon! Crazy-weird and exciting. We’re chicken farmers!
July 18, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Wonderful Post! I love the names and thanks for the visit this morning. The chickens are so fortunate to have your family. Glad they are serving up breakfast!
July 18, 2010 at 8:39 pm
What fun this is! I love the names but mostly I love what each set of names says about its creator. Gotta wonder if the Spice Chicks were suggested by a macho man, tho…LOL.
July 20, 2010 at 11:57 am
Thanks! We are grateful that you found these hens for us. It gave us just the push we needed. We’re all enjoying them so much! xoxo
July 20, 2010 at 11:58 am
I know! The names crack me up!