Our New Chicks

Sadly we lost two of our original chicks last week – the Ameraucana and the New Hampshire Red are gone.  We were letting them free range during the day, and they either escaped and/or got eaten by something while we were not home.  We had definitely grown attached to them, so it was quite a loss.  RIP Red Baron and Peanut :(

The chicken coop was quite a sad sight with only 2 birds left in it.  Spanky and Honey were clearly missing their buddies, so we decided that we needed to get more chickens.  We found a “mobile chicken lady” on Craigslist, and she delivered them last night.  Here’s what we got:

Cinnamon Queen:  Cinnamon Queens are noted for their tremendous egg production.  They lay large light brown eggs that are similar to the expensive ones you find in Whole Foods.  She’s about 4 months old and should start laying in a couple of weeks.

Golden Laced Wyandotte:  These birds are quite sweet and easy-going.  They are dependable egg-layers of large brown eggs.  She was pretty shy at first and spent most of the morning hiding in the roosting box.  She’s about 8 weeks old.

Ameraucana mixed with Black French Copper Maran:  This little girl is a hybrid chicken.  I loved our other Ameraucana (Peanut) because she would lay blue eggs.  This chick will end up giving us olive-colored eggs, although they will tend to be on the smaller side.  She’s about 6 weeks old.

We introduced them last night after dark, so it was hard to see what was going on.  This morning, however, the Cinnamon Queen was trying to establish herself as the “top bird” by chasing the other chickens and pecking at them.  They’ll supposedly settle in to the pecking order soon, but for now we’re going to have to keep a close eye on them to make sure no one gets bullied too much.