Chickens

The bug and I went to see a man about some chickens yesterday. I was hemming and hawing about which of the Ameraucana hens to get, and felt I was taking too long, so I quickly said I'd take that one and that one . . . and one of those black ones over there. He snatched up a black one and stuck it in our box. I learned upon opening the box when we got home that the black one was a rooster. So we have two Ameraucana hens (or more likely a mixed Easter Egger breed) and a Black Australorp rooster. They've settled into the chicken tractor nicely, and the dogs have been exceptionally well behaved, barking at them only intermittently from behind their own fence.

This afternoon we found the first egg in the nesting box. It was very light blue, a bit oddly shaped and large but lightweight for its size, with a bright orange yolk and a sort of thin albumin. Tasted like . . . egg. (All that back-breaking labor is starting to pay off, ha ha.)

Whenever I reminded the bug to hold the egg carefully, she'd gently and slowly uncurl her fingers so that it was just balancing on her palm.

The bug likes tossing the chickens scratch, and we've given them pear and apple trimmings and cores, and some grapes (the latter of which went uneaten except by fire ants) in addition to crushed pellet laying feed. She also likes counting the chickens. She counts everything now, including, the other day, all the apples in a three-pound bag: twelve!

Our chickens do not have names (yet). My first thought, before I knew that one was a rooster, was that they could be Nancy, Bess, and George, but now that may be too cute by a third.