Goldie the Conqueror

[tinychicky]

these are fun to follow

subscribing....

 

[Wildflower_VA]

Wonderful story, and very well written! I loved the second ad you ran! I am glad that I only found this thread today--I would have been frantically waiting for the next chapter!

This makes me doubly glad that I can have roosters, because it would be so hard to have to give up any one of them that had stolen your heart right from the get-go. If I have too many roosters, I can re-home the ones that don't have good personalities and to which I am not as bonded.

 

[Pele]

Several weeks later, all of our efforts paid off, and we had ourselves a completed coop! There was much rejoicing, and there may have even been a happy party where we invited all of our friends over for food and drinks, then tricked them into helping us pick up the coop and move it to the final destination. (yes we're devious)

I was very proud of what we had accomplished since neither my DH nor myself had any background in construction. It was actually highly amusing to find out just how incompetant we were when we first picked up a saw and couldn't get it to work. There may have been shenanigans involving us not even knowing that a 2x4 was in fact, not 2x4 in size. To make matters worse, I had decided that no coop plans that I had found online fit what I wanted perfectly, so.... to heck with it, how hard is it to design a coop? It turns out: very!

Thankfully, my DH never even so much as batted an eyelash about my constant changing of plans, and my last-minute fixes when reality and physics insisted that I was being silly. I am now thoroughly convinced that he is the most patient man on the planet.

Now it was time to put the oldest girls into the coop! Let me tell you, it was obvious that we humans were more impressed with it than they were. Their bewilderment with their surroundings was palpable:

After two days of being... well cooped up, we let them come out for the first time. The idea was that they'd fly to the freedom of their run, happy to be outdoors with the grass and sunshine. Excited, we opened up the door and stood by with cameras at the ready like paparazzi, eagerly waiting the special moment.

We waited............and waited...................aaaaaaand waited.

45 minutes later, Drusilla was pushed out by mistake by the others:

After much congratulating of each other and our intrepid young flock, our day was considered done, and we left them to do their chicken thing.

Several days later, I received a very very special e-mail. Kathy, bless her soul, sent me an update on my boys! I was unspeakably happy, and greedily read her message. She was writing to tell me that they both were settling in just fine, and were crowing up a storm in their coop. She also told me that she had bought several week old chicks that both of the boys had taken an instant shine to.

They seemed quite proud of their little manly selves, escorting the chicks everywhere, and protecting them from even the smallest bug. Masculine pride fairly radiated from them, even through the picture:

But nobody was prouder than their mommy!

to be cont....

 

[artsyrobin]

awesome about the boys!

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

See you started the boys off right & now all that love you gave them, they can shower onto the new chicks they are in charge of.

 

[Pele]

Yes I am very happy that it's worked out the way it has. The story does get better though. I'll try to update it soon.

Thanks again for the nice feedback!

 

[lvchicken]

That is so sweet! Thanks for writing! Subscribing........

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

More, More, More!!

~ Aspen

 

[Pele]

After Kathy's exciting e-mail, spring marched on in a very soggy fashion. We received unprecedented amounts of rain for our area (Southern Idaho is high desert), and flooding became a way of life. Even my chickens' run was a mudhole, much to their delight. I started to grow concerned that my girls would come to believe that they were actually Seattle chickens, and start demanding Banana Slugs from me. Yuck!

Fortunately, our searing sun finally won through all the rain in early June, and summer officially made it's presence known. At this point, I started to worry about my girls becoming overheated as temperatures easily made it over 90 on a daily basis. We froze waterbottles and threw them into the run with the intention that the chooks would sit on or next to them. After they tested it for edibility with a couple of pecks, we were summarily glared at, and received indignant ruffled feather-shaking for wasting their time.

In order to appear sane, I will pretend that the above snubbing caused me to turn to thoughts of more baby chickens for comfort. Despite my DH's bewildered protests, I decided that I wanted more chickens, darnit! And this time, they were going to be fuzzy, not functional!

So off again we went to the hatchery, and this time, I had no justifications for getting more chickens at all. However I comforted myself with the idea that I was buying bantams, and since they were half the size of normal chickens, I was just buying one. It made complete and logical sense!

Here are the half-chickens that I bought:

Mumbles the Birchen Cochin:

Peanut the Gold Laced Cochin:

We were once again in chicken-love, and played with these tiny packages of joy as often as possible. Much to their consternation, their little fuzzy feet were imminantly fun to tickle.

While our half chickens were baking in the brooder and dreaming of being a whole chicken one day, we now turned our eyes onto our original girls, waiting on pins and needles for that elusive first egg....


to be cont....

 

[artsyrobin]

they are just darling, hmmm, i didn't know they have ticklish feet, gonna have to try that on mine!!!