birds of a feather

Clay arrived home one evening last week with a fluffy cheeping chick. We have decided to take a risk and add a rooster to the flock. So Jedidiah, the handsome black australorp, spent his first night with us in his new box home in the mud room.

He was a very lonely little chick and cheeped forlornly all night. This resulted in us making a run to Orscheln's the next day to pick up a companion. We didn't need two babies crying for attention in the wee hours of the night, Amelia does a good job all by herself. After oogling over all the cute balls of fluff at the farm store we grabbed an americauna pullet (girl chick) and then, on Margaret's prompting for a yellow chick, a salmon faverolle. I knew absolutely nothing about salmon faverolles when we arrived home with one. But after I saw this picture on the internet I was quickly won over:

So Jed lucked out and got two little friends to snuggle up to and boss around. He didn't seem to realize that he was half their size (but growing quickly).

Meet Judith (the salmon faverolle):

And, in keeping with Hebrew names that start with "J", meet Jemima (the americauna):


I have decided to come up with a name for each breed of chicken that we have, instead of going to the trouble of naming each individual chicken like I did in the days of my youth. I had a lot more time and interest in bonding with all of my chickens back then. I like to think that I am a little more practical and mature now. And will no longer name my chickens such affectionate names like "Doo Doo". So, with that in mind, I promptly - and very maturedly - named my rhode island red hens "Agnes" and my barred rock hens "Flora". Except for the couple of hens that have gained the additional, more descriptive, names - like Floppy and Lazarina. So Judith and Jemima join the flock, with more of their kind probably coming in the next few years. Only Jedidiah will keep his name solely to himself.

I have known sweet, docile roosters and roosters from the underworld. Let's hope Little Jed will belong to the first group, for our sake as well as his.