The Ugly Duckling err CHICKEN

When Anne asked me to partner with her in raising chickens at first I thought she was fooling with me.  Why would she think that I would want to do this?  I didn't think she knew me that well!  It didn't take long for me to think about a response.  Being in the company of animals has always given me an innate sense of peace.  Perhaps it's that farmer gene that Dad gave me.  He never talked much about his life on the farm and as I learned more about the pain he underwent, growing up in a time when mental illness was a disgrace, I understood why.  But it still left a kind of 'Country Living' romantic twang inside my heart.  When I was a young school girl my best friend, Lori Kunde, and I would sit on the playground and dream of what our house would look like when we grew up.  I was sure that I'd live in a converted barn.

Like Langston Hughes said, this was a 'dream deferred.'  For some reason God saw to it that I'd be able to experience a slice of that dream by connecting me with Anne and bringing The First Ladies to us.  They were adorable to hold and watch grow (front row:  Dolly Madison; back row:  Maime Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, LBJ).

Dolly was the smallest one but worked to keep up with the other ladies just doing what chickens do (eat and poop).  She was the first one to greet me in the morning when they camped out in my garage while Anne was on vacation.  As she grew we noticed that her beak was becoming more and more twisted.

We checked various websites, where we met backyard chicken keepers that were much more obsessed with this hobby than us, and no one had a chick that had lived to adulthood with a crossed beak.  We saw that her conformity wasn't bothering her or the other ladies, and she was growing at relatively the same pace as the others so putting her down was out of the question.

On Friday, August 13th I checked their nesting spots and saw my FIRST EGG!  Gregg didn't believe me and was just about as surprised as I to see the beauty just laying there.  The ladies had left the coop for the fresh water we'd brought them so we didn't know who the 'mom' was.  At first I thought that it was Maime as she was screaming at me for taking the egg, and being the largest -- I just assumed that she was the one.  The next morning I found another one; same color as the first.  I remembered Anne talking about the different breeds that we have (Americuna and Wyandotte) and that they laid colored eggs but couldn't remember who was who and which did what.  As soon as I got home from my chicken duty I hit the web, trying to learn more about these beauties.  It's now obvious that Maime is the Americuna, as she has these weird sideburns sticking out the sides of her cheeks.  Americunas lay green / gray eggs; so it wasn't her.  I next checked the Wyandottes and sure enough!  They lay the brown eggs; so that left Dolly and Eleanor, although I don't really think that Elenor is a Wyandotte as she's a red color . . . I was perplexed. 

Anne was awakened by the most unusual sound (for someone who's not used to the sound that chickens make when they're laying eggs) and ran outside to see what was the matter with the Ladies -- only to find DOLLY sitting on the nest as proud as could be!  Anne was so proud of her and told her to talk the other ladies into laying.  Before Anne left on vacation she commented on Dolly has become the most beautiful and thought that she'd lead from behind -- little did she know!

What a learning experience this has been, in so many ways:
- The Ladies never cared that Dolly was different than them
- Dolly learned to do with what she had
- They each have their position within the hen house; Maime was the head chick, Eleanor the one who dug
   up the bugs, and Dolly the leader
- They are a team, and when one wandered out of their enclosure the others talked them back in
- When we took Dolly's eggs out of the nest it was Maime who screamed at us the loudest, knowing how
   much those eggs meant to Dolly (I did feel guilty for a bit)
- Dust baths can be shared
- There's room for all of us on the roost
- It's wonderful to have friends and I'm so glad that you're mine!