Bully, the Brahma, defending her eggs

In living with as many animals as we do, I find myself "zoomorphosizing" folks, giving them animal attributes, the opposite of anthropomorphizing, which ascribes human characteristics to either animals or inanimate objects, like our cars or sewing machines or...?

Just the other day I found myself describing a friend's actions as that of a wounded dog, not wanting to show the vulnerable side for fear of attack. I also caught myself describing someone unwilling to give up total control by describing when I am collecting eggs and can't pick all of them up at once. The hen will quietly and discreetly extend her wing over the egg, slide it back towards her body and glide over it, now hiding it from me. I have a real hard time taking it away from them again after this sly maneuver.

The most embarrassing...when I am in the middle of imitating one of my animals behavior, complete with body contortions, facial expressions and deep, guttural noises. There is no lady like recovery from that show!

I love my animals and can't even begin to count all of the mouths we feed. The numbers will jump exponentially when we get our bees in two weeks. I am dizzy just thinking of that many creatures I will be mothering. What is another 30,000 mouths?

Amazing Little Eggs!

Some of the girls have just started laying and we can't believe just how amazingly TINY they are!!! The little green egg in the center is literally the size of a large olive! One of the eggs is pale blue and must be from one of our Ameraucana Easter Eggers. We think that our tiny little girl, Sarah, the bantam Olde English Game Bird, is laying the little pale brown/ivory egg and we are assuming that the long, light brown eggs is from Bully, the bantam Brahma.

It would really help if we could actually WATCH them laying the eggs, or check the nesting boxes right after they have laid the eggs. Why can't we? Well...the girls yell at us. They want their privacy. If we stand there...oh, heavens, they SCOLD us!!! They are too funny. They do like the nesting boxes and are finally getting accustomed to the remodel.

The only hold out is Josephine, the little spit-fire bantam hen that is Napoleon's special girl. She insists upon sitting on the edge of the door leading outside. I have to physically go and lift her out of the door way so I can lock up at night. I think she is really just sitting there trying to figure out how to better landscape the enclosure!

The Mighty Miz Sarah and the other Bantam Ladies Lay

Our darling Miss Sarah, the Bantam Old English Game Bird (aka tiny hen) and her step-sister, Bully, the Bantam Brahma hen, have started to lay! We are so dazzled and amazed by the size of these eggs! They are about the size of big olives! Not only have they begun to lay, but our other older bantam girls, Wild Girl and Josephine (both had Ameraucana mothers and unknown fathers) are laying again...we are guessing.

Really, with 50 chickens/46 hens, you really have to guess at who is laying what. I mean, you can't exactly see who is laying which particular egg because we aren't out there all day long. Farmer Jeff went out this morning to collect the eggs that have been laid over the last couple of days only to surprise Sarah sitting on a green egg. Now, we know full well that Sarah will NEVER lay a green egg because she just isn't that kind of girl! Whose egg it was, well, now that we have 9 Ameraucanas, we will really never know. We have seen that some of the Ameraucanas are laying very green eggs while some of them are laying eggs with a slightly more blue hue.


We love all of our chickens equally, no matter what color egg they may lay. Thanks, Girls!