A little chicken story...

A couple of weeks ago I was looking through the Farm and Garden section on Craig's List and saw an ad for a Silver Sebright hen for sale. So I clicked on it, and what I saw was quite sad: A beloved little pet hen had begun to crow and while they loved her, they lived in the city and her noisiness would not make her a good neighbor any longer. Well, I wrote to these nice people, only to commiserate, in that my own little Sebright hen crowed as well. I gave them a link to this blog so they could see our Sophie and the rest of our little farm.


I got an email back from the mom and her 7 year old daughter saying that they needed to find a home for their beloved Sylvia and that if they could not find a good situation for her, could she come live here at Red Pony Ranch? I replied that they were welcome to come visit and if they felt this was a good place for her then she was welcome to stay.


Well, these pictures are testimony that Sylvia did, in fact, come to live at Red Pony Ranch and she is getting along quite well! No one appears to even notice she's here (maybe they can't count and think she's Sophie?) and, in spite of the mom's worries, dominant little Sylvia doesn't appear to be trying to assert herself with the big hens, at least not yet!


I was a little nervous of letting Sylvia out of the run on her first day here (that's her to the left of center in the picture), but I felt that she would stick around her own kind and so far that seems to be the case. She is happily rooting around for bugs and tender shoots, and already has learned that when I call "chick, chick, chick" that means that a treat of scratch is coming if they come running! So welcome Syliva to our little flock!


Of course I had to take them around to visit everyone else on the farm and of course Daisy was a big hit as usual. Here is the daughter and Daisy mugging for the camera. I had such a good time with our visitors and I think they had a good time too. I know Daisy was sad to see them go!


I just wanted to put one last picture of what's been happening in the nursery...these little chicks get more precocious every day and their latest antic is to play "King of the Mom!" Seems that there are always one or two chicks vying for space on top of mom. The winner gets to nap up there. Too funny!