Meet the Newest Members of the Farm.

We were very fortunate to acquire seven more chickens to add to our current family of six. Yes, we are now twelve hens deep plus one huge rooster named "Clint Eastwood"! And I am here to tell you they sure do produce a LOT more waste to clean up... More food to eat, more water to drink and they need a lot more room to "hang out" in during those 21-22 hrs they are not free-ranging the farm. (More on the new hang out in the next post!) So for now, let's meet the new fur babies!

Meet "Clint Eastwood" our new beautiful Black Copper Maran rooster... Why is he named that? Because he is smooth like that! He is definitely the ladies man.

Meet "Crooked Toe"... She is a wirey ol' girl. With a crooked toe on each foot... hence the name. She is a Rhode Island Red and she is a HOGLET... meaning when the snack jar comes out or the food bucket is opened, she is in your face begging!

Meet "RG2" which stands for "Ruby Grace II" since she is named after Ruby Grace the hen we lost a few weeks ago. Some days I feel like calling her "Ham-bone"... Why? It just feels right saying it. She is our only New Hampshire Red hen... she is a robust girl and likes to plop down and just sit any ol' where... All of the other 12 can be standing around and there's ol' Ham-bone sitting.

Meet "Cornbread"... our largest Buff hen. She is a big ol' girl resembling of a butter ball turkey. (Okay, maybe one you find packaged on a grocery store shelf... but still). She is a quiet girl... keeps to herself.

And meet our other new Buff hen, "Butterbean"... she is smaller than Cornbread. But, they go together... just like good ol' cornbread and butterbeans.

This is not a great shot of another one our new Rhode Island Red hens... her name is "Rocky Road" since he has a lot of random feathers with white tips (she looks like rocky road ice cream!). She is fast mover around the yard... so it is hard to get her to pose for a photo.

Evidently I am a terrible mother to the chickens... or else just a bad photographer. What an awful shot of "Turnip Green"... but, at least you can see the dark green tips on her neck feathers. She is another fast and not-so social girl... hard to photograph that!

Okay, here is a better shot of ol' Turnip Green (another Rhode Island Red)... she is cuddled up with ol' Thelma Gertrude while wallowing in the dirt "dusting" themselves. They are like two peas in a pod having a dust bath.

That was a super stressful afternoon when we brought the new chickens to the farm to meet and integrate with our current six girls. The old pecking order is a real thing in the chicken world. Very mean thing that "pecking order" is... chickens are just down right mean to each other. I hate to see it happen... and how they just continue to peck each other to injuries just kills my soul. Hopefully, they will all learn to live together in peace in harmony sooner than later.