Chooks
The orange kitten's name is Boots. He came with that name. We tried to change it, but nothing stuck. He has a sister who looks solid black but under sunlight reveals herself to have black stripes on a background of black fur. Boots got very sick a couple of weeks ago and nearly died. He went several days without eating. We kept expecting to find his emaciated corpse curled up in a closet or corner. He's back from the brink now, but he remains visibly smaller than his sister.
I ordered 15 Rhode Island Reds and 10 Plymoth Barred Rocks. They sent us 15 and 11, so we got one freebie. I'm hoping that 15 of them make it to adulthood. I thought Callum and a three-year old daughter of a friend of ours would take out several with squeezing and rough treatment. We've moved the chicks from the cardboard box shown into a metal cage that I bought for the Great Pyranese who briefly joined our family. Callum shakes the cage and drops things inside, but so far we've avoided any casualties.
I selected these breeds because they lay brown eggs, which Lara prefers over white ones. We now live out in the country, so we could keep a roster if we wanted to. All the chicks we have now should be pullets. I'm kicking around the idea of getting some kind of exotic roster to breed with our egg-laying hens. Any suggestions?
I lost one of our previous batch of chicks to a hawk. The yard where these girls will live and forage has many tall, fully developed trees to provide cover from airborne predators. The house we live in came with a roofed dog kennel, and that will serve as a makeshift chicken house. I'll need to fortify it against invading opposums.