moving on up, to a sweet coop in the back

millie and nelly the fourth are moving out of the basement and in with the big girls!

i guess i should back up a bit. since we got our first batch of girls in april, we have gone through a pretty dramatic series of farm trials and tribulations. initially we got 5 chicks-- nelly, boots, mabel, sunshine, and fern. in early june we moved the girls out to their new, nearly finished, deluxe coop in the backyard (furnished by david of course). the next morning we awoke to 4 happy pullets and one dead one, nelly had passed sometime in the night. pilar was distraught but consoled by dada and a sweet little burial site not too far from the coop for little nelly.

since we were still unsure if all of our girls were truly "girls" we figured we would get 2 more so that we would hopefully end up with a nice sized flock of at least 4 or 5. we came home with nelly the second plus one. we unfortunately lost both of these wee little girls due to getting pasted up. somehow we had managed to not get schooled on the pasting up issue and we discovered one of these little chicks was not doing so well as a result of clogging- we were keeping a close eye on her (and her bottom) however, unfortunately in the middle of the night our heat lamp burned out and we awoke to 2 lifeless chicks. this elicited a dramatic and tearful reaction from pilar (she still has moments of deep sadness when she thinks about them). farm life is hard-- especially if you are an animal lover to the degree that miss pilar is. these two little chicks joined nelly the first in the backyard.

we got 2 more chicks. one of these girls got pasted up and we lost her too. she now rests with the other 3 in the backyard chicken graveyard. so we got one more and we managed somehow to get these chicks grown in to pullets-- millie and nelly the fourth-- and they are now joining the big girls in the back. they are moving in to a little coop annex inside the big coop while the 4 big ones get used to the idea of the 2 littles joining the flock.

of the 4 big girls it turns out that fern is actually not a girl. he reminds us of this bright and early every morning. fortunately the neighbors have not yet complained. city chicken laws say "no roosters" within city limits but i guess this is fairly lenient if the neighbors are obliging. pilar is lobbying hard to keep fern, and i have to say i too am pretty fond of fern (even his early morning wake up calls) but we are going to have to see how the rest of the hood feels- not to mention we are really intending to have eggs for breakfast, not chicks for dinner. in the meantime, i am not quite ready to break pilars heart by telling her fern has got to go... the girl is in love with her chickens and somehow she is convinced that fern is going to be the egg laying variety of rooster-- i haven't figured this one out yet. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that both millie and nelly turn out to be girls and that miss p. will be satisfied with a decent sized flock of 5 and fern will find a nice home on a farm nearby where he can preform his rooster calls to a well receiving audience.

stay tuned for more coop de saratoga updates coming soon.

(nelly & millie)

(the girls; sunshine, fern, boots, & mabel)

(fern, the egg laying rooster!?)