Welcome, Chickens!

Colorful eggs from the “new kids”

We went without eggs from Booty Family Farm for many months, no thanks to one red-coated rascal. (Read all about him in my post from last summer, “Bad Fox.”) But the squirrels are fat this spring, and extra precautions are being taken with the chickens, so maybe the foxes will be content dining on squirrel stew (or sushi is more like it).

Before you shed a tear for us and our deprivations, I must say that our good neighbors at Chestnut Meadow Farm (with their large, secure hen house) provided us with eggs through the winter. But there’s something about Booty Farm eggs that makes them extra delicious.

Veteran Chickens

There are still some survivors from the summer-of-the-fox and they defiantly continue to roam about, feeding on bugs, spilled bird seed, and delicacies in the compost bin. (Don’t let the terrorists win!) To the best of my knowledge they are all still named “Carol,” but the ranks of the Carols definitely needed reinforcements. Adopting hens from someone moving out of town was an excellent start. These ladies (or as Elsa calls them, the “new kids”) are healthy, hardy, and produce gorgeous, colorful eggs.

Steve and Elsa put up some wire fencing around the chicken coop to give them a protected outdoor run, and they are quickly acclimatizing (and figuring out how to escape). The “old kids” seem to enjoy strutting about outside the enclosure, demonstrating their superior rank. (Yes, Ma’am!)

Welcome, Ladies!

The “new kids” playing in their outdoor run

The most recent arrivals are a fuzzy clump of cuteness: 24 chicks. (Click here to see Elsa counting the cheeping bundles of fluff in a video on my YouTube channel.) The chicks came from a family whose daughter attends Sandwich Children’s Center with Elsa — no mail-order strangers!

They’re a mixed two dozen, both male and female, but it’s too early to determine the exact ratio. I imagine that by the time we hear “cock-a-doodle-dos,” we’ll know the score.

The “Chick Coop” — transitional housing

All of this calls for careful chicken management. Old kids, new kids, and chicks can’t be thrown together willy-nilly, since feathers are bound to get ruffled. Or worse. Never fear — the Booty Family Farm Housing Authority has a plan.

Once the chicks are ready to move outside (meaning they’ve become too smelly to be in Rachel’s pottery studio), they’ll go out on the Bartlett porch into what Elsa calls the “chick coop.” When they outgrow that playhouse, they’ll transition to the main chicken coop and outdoor run, and the current inhabitants of that space, the “new kid” hens, will go traveling.

Steve has plans to construct a new coop-on-wheels, which Elsa refers to as “the chicken tractor.” Presumably it will be pulled by the tractor. The idea is to keep them on the move so that they can scratch up and fertilize different parts of the farm. Spread the wealth! It will also, conveniently, make an opening for the growing chicks.

Lest you fear the new kids are being exiled to Siberia, rest assured that they are valued. In fact, they are being assigned individual names. In the photo, you’ll see the chart that Elsa is holding. The handwriting is Steve’s but make no mistake about it, Elsa is in charge. There were a couple of openings still, when I took the photo, but I’m sure they’re filled in by now. (I guess “Only Orange,” in the #1 slot,  didn’t need a description.) Perhaps Elsa will name race horses one day. I think she’d be good at it!

In the meantime, Todd and I are grateful to be once again enjoying Booty Family Farm eggs! I’ll leave you with some photos of Elsa in action: