The pitter-patter of little feet
Mar 14th, 2008 by Laura
The four-toed kind that is…
What’s a crazy chicken lady to do when she’s only got 4 hens but 3.5 acres of land? Why buy 10 chicks on a whim of course.
Yesterday we got home on the train at 8:45 am. Drove to the house, changed our clothes and headed up to Skagit Farm Supply to buy 54 fence posts for our weekly farm improvement project (details later). When we walked in you could hear the cheeping and peeping that only results from hundreds of day old chicks in one place. They had actually just arrived hours before!
While Mike got the details on what kind of posts we needed, the wire we’ll be using and other boring home improvement related details, I plotted. By the time he came back I’d worked it all out. What supplies we were missing, where we could brood them, the fact that they’ll be 5 weeks old by the next time I have to travel for work. You know, really important earth shattering work.
And surprisingly he didn’t even argue. Well not really. Not beyond rolling his eyes and saying “didn’t you already order eggs????”. To which I replied “well yes, but they haven’t shipped yet and no one’s broody now anyway. I’ll just cancel it.”
And there you are, that’s how we became the proud parents of 10 little peepers from Privett Hatchery. I really only wanted to get 8, as a dozen hens seems ideal to me. But they had five choices and I just couldn’t decide…
Right now out in the pumphouse in a very large box we’ve got:
- 2 Golden Laced Wyandottes (pullet)
- 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes (pullet)
- 2 Light Brahmas (pullet)
- 2 Buff Orpingtons (pullet)
- 2 Breed-Unknown Banties (straight run)
It’s been 24 hours and so far so good. They want nothing at all to do with me (as it should be). And they’re fully engaged in all the typical chick cuteness including sleeping while standing, pooping in their food, collapsing where they stand and piling up to nap. The cuteness is almost enough to fry my brain.
Now we have to come up with names for all of them. And since there’s two of everything, and we likely won’t be able to tell them apart, we need names that go together. Think Ben & Jerry, Bonny & Clyde, etc. I need five sets of names for pairs of famous women and so far I’ve only come up with two. Anyone else got any ideas? The ones I’ve come up with are: Laverne & Shirley and Cagney & Lacey. I also thought of Lucy & Ethel, but we’ve already got a Lucy.
thema and louise?
gertrude and alice?
sigfried and roy? (ok, sorry… couldn’t resist)
More from the office crew:
Eva and Zsa-Zsa
Venus and Serena
Mary-Kate and Ashley
Glynda and Elphaba (Oz witches)
Patty and Selma (Marge Simpson’s sisters)
Marian and Vivian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Twins)
Paris and Nicole
Rachel and Leah (canonically easy to confuse with each other
)
Mythical women have a distressing tendency to come in threes….
Betty & Wilma ?
Help! I can’t stop!
Nancy (kerrigan) and Tonya (harding)
Olga (korbut) and Nadia (comaneci)
Ann (landers) and (dear) Abby
Veronica and Betty
Ooooh!! How exciting!! I’ll be sure to come back for future updates of your little chickies.
I was going to say Betty and Wilma, too. BUt I’m not the one to give you great chick names because some of my own pullets are still not named!
My kids were a big help in naming several of them, but mostly I just call them “Ladies”, or “Chickies” or “Girls”.
I have two of everything, too, except for 3 Ameracaunas. I don’t have names for my two Silver Laced Wyandotte Sisters yet, but just call them “The Silver-Laced Wyandotte Sisters” They are inseparable and I am sure they gossip with each other about their henmates and even me!
Got any ideas for a pair of uppity, snob sisters?
I just had a lightbulb moment for your co-names. How about branching out to non-female names?
Like:
salt & pepper
Peanut Butter and Jelly (Peanut & Jelly)
salsa and chips
yin and yang
barnes & noble
peaches and cream
cheese and crackers
s’getti & meatballs
apple pie & ala mode
fudge & nuts
I don’t dare enter a feed supply store until the Fall, lest I make an impulse buy of chicks that I cannot fit into my current flock! Only the small feed store down the street for straw and chicken feed… They never have a good selection of livestock, so I’m safe there.
Wow! Check out all those names! Now I’m going to have to spend the next week pondering them all! Good thing I can’t start to name them until we can tell them apart.
Everyone still looks good - no pasty butts so far. Hopefully tomorrow will go just as well.
Do any of them look like they have literary leanings? How about Gertrude (Stein) and Alice (B.Toklas)?
How exciting! I really want chicks!!! None of the feed stores around here have chicks. I’d have to drive about an hour to get them. And we aren’t allowed to have chicks here anyway.
Oh! And I meant to ask you how/why you bought from Privettes, when most people tend to buy from McMurray.
I bought our chickens from Privette’s, too. But mostly because they are local to us and I figured the chicks would be less stressed not having ot travel so far.
Thanks so much for this challenge. Wasted too much time but I needed something (sort of) silly to take my mind off of some serious things that were consuming me. So here’s some (way too many) ideas:
Gayle & Oprah
Mary Ann & Ginger
Telma & Joyce (Dawn from Tony Orlando)
Alice & Trixie (Honeymooners)
Betty & Wilma (or Wilma & Pebbles)
Demeter & Persephone
Liza & Judy
Melanie (Griffith and her mom) Tippi (Hedren from “The Birds” though I think it would be even funner to have a Tippi and Alfred — rooster — duo).
Scout & Rumor
Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony
Artemis & Selene (Luna & Diana) or Selene & Eos
Buddhi & Siddhi or Siddhi & Riddhi
Naomi, Wynonna & Ashley (Judd)
Michelle (Phillips) w/ daughters Chynna & Mckenzie.
Joan & Melissa (Rivers)
Kate (Hudson) & Goldie (Hawn)
Fanny (Farmer) & Betty (Crocker)
Rosarita & Zoe (Sesame Street)
SOME SISTERS:
Meg, Jo, Beth & Amy
Charlotte, Emily & Anne (Brontë)
Vanessa & Lynn (Redgrave)
Britney & Jamie Lynn (Spears)
Jessica & Ashlee (Simpson)
And my fave of the sisters:
Haylie Duff & Hilary Duff (Orphington)
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FIRST LADIES (Dolley, Martha, Lady bird, Eleanor, Mamie, Jacqueline, Rosalynn…)
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SOME CHEFS:
Rachael Ray
Nigella Lawsons
Alice Waters
Caprial Pence
“Ratatouille,” Colette
Julia Child
SPLIT NAMES:
Cleo/Patra
Kitty/Kat
Tine/Daly
Maya/Angelou
Pearl/Bailey
Ruby/Dee
Henriette/Delille
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If you had Barred Rocks I’d suggest these:
Joan Jett
Pat Benatar
Lita Ford
Janis Joplin
Marianne Faithfull
Cyndi Lauper
Avril Lavigne
Annie Lennox
Courtney Love
Shirley Manson
Alanis Morissette
Pink
Poe
Grace Slick
Gwen Stefani
Tina Turner
Bonnie Tyler
Ann & Nancy Wilson
Sharon & Kelly Osbourne
Sunny & Cher (or Chastity)
Including these:
Theo, Gina, Squid, Sindi (from the Lunachicks)
Martie, Emily, Laura, Robin Lynn (Dixie Chicks)
Magenta & Columbia (as well as Janet — Rocky Horror)
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But most of all since these are (close to) Easter Chicks then I’d go for chocolate names but not just any chocolate since these are no slave chicks:
Rapunzel, Dagoba, Cocoa Camino, El Ray, Vivani, Grenada, Ithaca, Alma, Rapunzel, Divine, Sojourn, La Siembra, Omanhene, Terra Nostra, Shaman
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I’m glad you have new chicks. I hope you’ll keep us updated so we can see what they turn out to be. I find that fascinating and my current personal favorite breed are the Wyandottes. I have serious henvy!
But I am curious about how Danny is doing. I became quite attached to her and was so sad to see her go.
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