Chickens!!

We have more chickens than cats again! Today, Miles and I were lucky enough to get some babies again. Chickens this year have been hard to come by. They come in to the store once a week and are gone within 3 hours. The closest place for me to get some chicks without a special order of 30+ is down in Lewiston, about a 40 minute drive. today was our third time trying and, as they say, third times a charm!

We waited in line for two hours but found plenty of variety left to choose from. One of my picks was sold out but there were enough other great options to take home happily! So we got eight new babies. Hazel wanted to name them after colors of the rainbow. Miles wanted to name them after gemstones. We compromised with rainbow gemstones.

Meet: Ruby (who I think might be a roo…), Amber, Citrine, Emerald, Sapphire, Garnet, Opal and Onyx.

I actually picked them based on egg colors because I like a pretty eggs bowl. In 16-20 weeks we’ll have plenty of dark brown, light brown, cream, blue, green and at least two other varieties of colors (I’m rooting for another pink egg layer!) Miles has hopes of selling them at the market but I’m not sure they will be laying before he’s done with that this year.

In the meantime they are awfully cute and snuggly, much different than our last batch of chickens who just ran from us. This weekend I have hopes of introducing them to our last two remaining big girls, Poppy and Lily. Poppy has been motherly in her days so I’m crossing my fingers she’ll want them to be her new children, that would save me a lot of work. However, she’s also killed a chick in the past so it’s a gamble that we’ll have to watch and see… either way, spring babies are so cute!