New Girls on the Block

That's right! It's time for the return of Everett's hottest chicks. Peep shows cost five cents, cash only please.

Huddle!! Defying all responsibility of adulthood, we've added six new baby chicks to our little urban farm. Three or four of them will be going to the neighbor across the street (who I wouldn't trust alone with grass, let alone a brood of babies...), and the rest will become part of our established flock. These little lovelies came from the amazing Monroe Feed & Seed, who currently have about 40 troughs filled with just about every breed of chicken imaginable. We picked out three Speckled Sussex, two Brahmas, and one Blue Wyandotte.

Brahmas are dual purpose birds from India. Their tails are short, they're big when fully grown (like 10 pounds for hens), and they have feathered feet (see above). Too cute!! We'll be making a lot of "shave those legs" jokes as they grow up.

Blue Wyandottes have a lovely greyish-blue feathering when they grow up. This little girl (in the front) has already been through her own set of adventures, which I'll tell you about in a day or two. She's named Winona, or Winnie for short. She was originally destined to become one of the neighbor's chickens, but only time will tell. We've both fallen really hard for this little girl.

The Sussex girls are big and sassy. Two of them are obviously from the same clutch, and the third looks a little different in her coloring. Sussex were the original bird of choice in England for years, both for eggs and meat. They're friendly and cold hardy, and they lay very nice brown eggs. Next to this one you can see a Brahma on the left and Winnie on the right.

The chicks range in age from five days old (Brahmas) to about two weeks old (Sussex). Some are starting to feather out already. Brooding chicks is a bit of work, though, so I'm glad we've done this before. I'll go into a little more detail over the coming weeks about how we raise our chicks and some of the trials and errors of being a chicken mama. In the meantime, does anyone have suggestions for names? Our only rule is that they be named after "Hot Chicks," so movie actors are generally the easiest. Bear in mind, our current flock has the following names, so repeats are not allowed.

Portia (di Rossi)
Ellen (DeGeneres)
Ursula (Andress)
Raquel (Welch)
Ingrid (Bergman)

...and, though departed to the great coop in the sky...

Norma Jean (Marilyn Monroe)