Introducing:

Pepper 

"the black one" 

 rules-the-roost, bossy, hungry, go-getter

 

Rose/Mary

"the fluffy ones"

(don't ask me which is which - I don't know) 

the best way to describe these two involves colorful language, which I do not use on this blog, but basically... they do what Pepper tells them. :)

 Garlic

"the mommy one"

(to clarify - they're all mommy ones)

friendly, mild-mannered, independent, fast

 

 Poppyseed (Poppy)
"the baby one"

(don't tell Pepper, but Poppy is our favorite)

underdog, dumb, friendly, fearless, tiny little fuzzball

 Honestly, if you had told me six months ago that we would be raising chickens, I would not have believed you for a moment. But here we are today, and I'm totally excited about it. Funny how things change. Daniel built the world's coolest chicken coop - so awesome, it deserves its own post - and they stay in there pretty much all day. When we are outside in the evenings we let them out to roam about, although for the most part they stay close to the coop.

Elli is a natural. She loves picking them up, trying to feed them, and mother-hen-ing them in any way she can dream up.

Caroline looooooves the chickies, but the feeling is not so mutual yet. I'm sure you can't imagine why. None of them have lost any feathers for a few days now, though, so I think that's improvement.

Ginger (still top of the pecking order) was very interested in the beginning, but she's pretty used to them now.

We have a new and maybe strange evening routine around here, which goes something like this:

Daddy and Elli catch lizards and beetles and bugs of all kinds

Cara tries to grab the lizards they collect in a fish bowl

Mommy pries lizard tails out of toddler fists

Daddy and Elli feed them to the chickies

Elli loves on the chickies, especially "the baby one"

Cara chases the chickies

chickies run

Apart from my aversion to the whole lizard tail thing, I am loving the experience for our family. There's something so rewarding about having a family project - another reason to be together, to be outside, talking about how to care for another living being, growing in compassion and responsibility.