Chick talk

A lot of you know, from Facebook, that we have four new baby chicks. We lost one of the silver Wyandottes the first week but the others are doing really well.
They were so tiny and cute when we brought them home. Now they are "teenagers" and they are still cute, but a little ragged. All legs and pin feathers.

We let them out of there little cage, yesterday, to roam around the chicken house and see a bit of the bigger world around them. They were all looking outside at the big hens and being very curious about what was going on.

"Do you suppose that we will be out there, someday?"

 

"It looks awfully scary and unprotected." said one of them.

 "Do you think that we will be as big as them?"

"I don't know. Hey, what was that noise?"

The Plymouth Rock, outside, came up and poked at the chicken wire door, then walked away.

Miss Poloma (on the right) told them all not to be afraid. "We have to listen to Squeeky. She says that two of us will be as big as the hens out there and two of us will be like Squeeky. I think that I'm one of the big hens. I'm taller than all of you all ready."

"So, what I'm I going to be?" asked the beautiful little hen with the Cleopatra eyes, "I need to know, so I can practice my behavior. I want to be big and beautiful."

"Look at me. I've got the best feathers all ready. I've got the prettiest eyes."  said Cleo.

"Yeah.. will I bet you can't do this."

 Poloma reached back and pecked her side with her beak... "My neck is long enough to clean my feathers with my beak."
Then she looked Cleo right in the eye.  "It can only be one of us that is regular size because I heard Farmlady say that the Silver Wyandotte is one of the big hens. That means two of us are going to be big and two of us are going to be little. Guess we just have to wait and see."
Cleo walked away saying, "I heard her say that she doesn't want a rooster. I sure hope I'm not a rooster... because then she will have to change my name."

The discussion was over and their attention went back to a wood bee that had flown in through the chicken wire and was buzzing around above their heads.
That night when we put them back into their little cage and we picked up the eggs for the day, we found a  little egg in a nesting box. A Squeeky egg. These chicks have inspired her. She is ten years old and she has laid her third egg in two weeks. What a girl my little bantam is. She thinks that these chicks are hers and I think if we had brought home fertile eggs she would have sat on them until they hatched.

I love you little bird. You can be their "mommy" and maybe they will protect you from those old grouchy hens. You are my little survivor and you can be anything you want. Bantams rule!