We've been invaded!

You are wondering why we haven't posted recently. For one thing, our humans were gallivanting about in May and June. They also claimed to be working raaather too much, Jesse on yardery and Cecile on that blasted book. Our coop is cooler, and so we believe Jesse. But we haven't seen any stinkin' book, so we're dubious about Cecile's claims. (Danielle: Beware!) Also, one of our number went broody. And how! Our Buffy is only just now coming out of it, poor thing. She weighed mere ounces, but is thankfully gaining weight again.

Our most calamitous news is that Jesse and Cecile brought a box of 27 two-day-old chicks home at the end of June. We were shocked! (And Machu is fascinated.) They even put one in with Buffy, hoping that she would then believe that she had been effective. She's not that stupid. But these chicks -- whew! They had to be individually taught to drink water. It is somewhat amazing, given this ignorance, that any survived. Alas, they all have. So far! (Shakespeare pecks them when she thinks Jesse's not looking.) But there are only 12 with us now because other humans fell in love with the rest of them. These are mostly Coq Marans, Frenchified chickens. (Did you read French-fried? Hee hee ... It's a hen joke. You're lucky you got it.) 'Ours' of course came from Iowa, just like Jesse. In the most chaotic picture in this post, you see them as they are today. Big! Being perceptive, you will also have noticed that two are ringers. One is a Rhode Island Red who Jesse calls I. Unbelievably, each has a name. But there is a definite lack of imagination in the naming thereof. They go from A to J, and then the last one is called LMNOP. How, you ask, did I join this motley crew? Jesse proposed a chick-exchange at the post office. When she and Cecile picked their box up, a couple from Marana was there picking up an entire box of Rhode Island Reds. Can you even imagine that many birds of the same feather? Apparently, we are sure that I is a hen (color being sex-linked in her breed). But the folks from Marana may have gotten a rooster. It's still a mystery. We are hoping against hope that a number of the invaders are roosters. They will then be given to the Food Bank or the folks in Marana. Or ... who knows? We hear there are other possibilities. The other ringer is Murray McMurray's idea of a joke. We think she is another foreigner, probably a Houdan. All topknot, no brains.

You may wonder, as we do, why our humans got these chicks. The Marans that turn out to be hens are supposed to lay chocolate eggs. Harumph!

Helloooo Food Bank!

Our Silkie sisters left yesterday to live at the Food Bank's coop. Cecile got paranoid about their noise, and Jesse reluctantly agreed to give them away. They really were a bit over the top. They laid gorgeous pink eggs, but they went broody so often that it was hardly worth the effort. And really! Those eggs were not worth celebrating for quite so long every time one came out ... or might be about to come out ... or came out two days ago. But we never thought these hens were the smartest birds hatched on this planet. And we are glad The Committee rules again. Pictured here is Thing 1 or Thing 2. We could only tell them apart if one was broody. Good riddance, we say.

We love our Jesse!

The chicken at the library

This is another of our favorite YouTube clips.

The joke du jour

The coop doesn't have a TV, so we watch YouTube on the desktop in the library instead. Even though this clip doesn't feature real chickens, it did make us chuckle and cluckle.

Book review

Watch this to the end when a five-week-old chick and her girl dance.

March egg report

We made 108 eggs last month! We're not sure what happened to them, but we suspect our featherless friends. Have they gone broody? Is there a giant nest inside their brick coop? We don't know why they live in such a horrible coop, or why they keep chicken-killers in there with them. Maybe the same pathology that explains these choices also accounts for their egg-stealing behavior. Being hens, we'll just keep at it. Thank goodness for the grubs and greens from the neighborhood gardeners!