The Golden Girls

I like having a flock of chickens that looks like a handful of trail mix. The Black Sex Links are the raisins; the Rhode Island Reds are spanish peanuts. The black and white speckles of the Barred Rocks can be toasted coconut, and the the varied browns of the Brown Leghorn/Amerucana crosses and our Golden Wyandotte are the chocolates, seeds, and oats. We've got Coach, the little bantam Buff Cochin rooster, as a little golden raisin, but I've been thinking we needed some more golden girls.

Running errands today, we stopped in at the Feed Store for bags of scratch and laying crumbles. Guess what - it's chick time already! They had three stock tanks full of cheeping little babies. The white leghorns were already fully feathered out - almost big enough to be outside. Only the tiny, little balls-of-fluff bantams were straight-run (meaning who knows how many roosters you'll get). All the rest were hens. So I picked out two Buff Orpingtons and two Red Sex Links, then spent the afternoon setting up chick-central in the dog crate in the spare room.

They are the quietest bunch I've ever had! They've already got their wing feathers, and I think they'll be warm enough without a light. Right now, they're snuggled together in a little chickpile, and not making a peep. What sweet, mellow little girls!