I have to share this cute pic of our first egg and our cute rescue kitty, Ponto. We are keeping chickens for the first time, and our first batch of chicks is finally getting big enough to lay eggs. The first egg is courtesy of our Leghorn, Titania. Ponto just had to sniff it when I was taking a photo of it. 
She is very, very sweet. We adopted her from the shelter about 3 months ago. We just love her to pieces.
Here is a better photo of Ponto:
Titania is the white one, of course! To the right of her is Hyde, an Easter Egger. Nimue is the dark one above Titania in the photo; we're not sure exactly what she is, but she looks kind of like a dark Gold-Laced Wyandotte, except her feathers are penciled. She was a chipmunk chick from Tractor Supply. That's either Grendel or Beowulf the Mille Fleur on the left.
Check out the chicken bunker that my daughter built out of scrap wood! It saved our chickens from being blown away when we had over 90 mph winds about 3 weeks ago. The chickens hang out in it a lot and just love it.
She also built what she calls the "jungle gym" for them. I don't have a pic, but it's basically 2 sawhorses made of wood. Each one has a platform they can sit on or sit under. They are connected by a piece of plywood on top, which they can also sit on or under. We have one of the feeders under it. It gives them something to climb on and creates more shade and shelter. Also built out of leftover wood.
I think I'll add a few more chicken pics!
This is Pluto, our Easter Egger rooster. He was supposed to be a pullet, but we've decided to keep him. He is gorgeous and friendly. This pic was taken a couple of weeks ago, and he is starting to get pretty saddle feathers, and his brown spots are deeper brown. I love his blue coloring.
On the left is Sylvie, our Blue-Laced Red Wyandotte. I wanted one really badly, and lucked out because they lady who owns the feed store where we buy horse feed had one hen for sale. She is so pretty, and friendly too.
Iris the other Easter Egger is on the right. He is a rooster who was supposed to be a pullet, too. We traded him back to the lady we got him from and now have an EE pullet in his place.
This is Zazu our Light Brahma rooster. Also supposed to be a pullet. He is being nice so far so we've kept him.
We've had bad luck with our percentage of roosters to pullets. We gave away 4 roosters, not counting Iris, so we've had 7 altogether. About 1/3 of our chicks, and only 1 was straight-run.
BTW, that's Gruenhilde our Buff Orpington on the right.
I just took these pics last week and they are already bigger than that! Zazu is going to be huge, which is why we may have to rehome him eventually. But we'll see.
This is Tsango, our Speckled Sussex. BTW, we've made some improvement to the coop since that photo. I didn't like the latch, and the door would blow closed (hence the board). Last week I changed the latch to make it more secure, and added a hook and eye on the other side so I could hook the door so it would stay open.
We also added nesting boxes and redid the roosts. My daughter built really nice ladders for them to access the roosts.
Here are 3 of our newer chicks. We got them from a farmer in Columbus, MT. From top to bottom they are Tempest, Dulcinea and Wisteria. They've grown a lot in the last 2 weeks! They are all Easter Eggers. We seem to be gravitating towards EE's, mostly because they come in all sorts of pretty colors.
She is very, very sweet. We adopted her from the shelter about 3 months ago. We just love her to pieces.
Here is a better photo of Ponto:
Titania is the white one, of course! To the right of her is Hyde, an Easter Egger. Nimue is the dark one above Titania in the photo; we're not sure exactly what she is, but she looks kind of like a dark Gold-Laced Wyandotte, except her feathers are penciled. She was a chipmunk chick from Tractor Supply. That's either Grendel or Beowulf the Mille Fleur on the left.
Check out the chicken bunker that my daughter built out of scrap wood! It saved our chickens from being blown away when we had over 90 mph winds about 3 weeks ago. The chickens hang out in it a lot and just love it.
She also built what she calls the "jungle gym" for them. I don't have a pic, but it's basically 2 sawhorses made of wood. Each one has a platform they can sit on or sit under. They are connected by a piece of plywood on top, which they can also sit on or under. We have one of the feeders under it. It gives them something to climb on and creates more shade and shelter. Also built out of leftover wood.
I think I'll add a few more chicken pics!
This is Pluto, our Easter Egger rooster. He was supposed to be a pullet, but we've decided to keep him. He is gorgeous and friendly. This pic was taken a couple of weeks ago, and he is starting to get pretty saddle feathers, and his brown spots are deeper brown. I love his blue coloring.
On the left is Sylvie, our Blue-Laced Red Wyandotte. I wanted one really badly, and lucked out because they lady who owns the feed store where we buy horse feed had one hen for sale. She is so pretty, and friendly too.
Iris the other Easter Egger is on the right. He is a rooster who was supposed to be a pullet, too. We traded him back to the lady we got him from and now have an EE pullet in his place.
This is Zazu our Light Brahma rooster. Also supposed to be a pullet. He is being nice so far so we've kept him.
We've had bad luck with our percentage of roosters to pullets. We gave away 4 roosters, not counting Iris, so we've had 7 altogether. About 1/3 of our chicks, and only 1 was straight-run.
BTW, that's Gruenhilde our Buff Orpington on the right.
I just took these pics last week and they are already bigger than that! Zazu is going to be huge, which is why we may have to rehome him eventually. But we'll see.
This is Tsango, our Speckled Sussex. BTW, we've made some improvement to the coop since that photo. I didn't like the latch, and the door would blow closed (hence the board). Last week I changed the latch to make it more secure, and added a hook and eye on the other side so I could hook the door so it would stay open.
We also added nesting boxes and redid the roosts. My daughter built really nice ladders for them to access the roosts.
Here are 3 of our newer chicks. We got them from a farmer in Columbus, MT. From top to bottom they are Tempest, Dulcinea and Wisteria. They've grown a lot in the last 2 weeks! They are all Easter Eggers. We seem to be gravitating towards EE's, mostly because they come in all sorts of pretty colors.