Lovebirds

Ever since Pinky and Skye did the deed earlier today, I've noticed a change in them. After Skye was 'with egg' Iss separated them, putting her back with the other hens and the chicks while putting Pinky in the pen next to them.

Only they've both spend every moment since virtually glued to the fence, gazing through the links at each other, making googoo eyes and such stuff. I would move Pinky further away but the last thing I need is a couple of delinquent teen runaways to track down.

Tell me if I'm boring you, won't you?

Huggles

I love the way our birdfolk gather together to sleep at night. Come on, look me in the eye and tell me it's not adorable. You can't, can you?


The latest addition to the McFamily was hatched today. McKenzie is the spawn of Pinky and Skye and is the first chicken my personal brood have caused (Sparky was begotten of Duke and Marmalade, two of Iss's chickens, while MacGregor and McDonald came from eggs Iss bought for me).

Iss has told me that that will do for now, that we have enough. Do you know how hard it is to not hatch eggs that are currently sat in your inventory, or to not pair up chickens that have been eyeing each other up through the wire fencing? It's bloody hard, I can tell you. I was even tempted to leave the inner coop doors open last night so that Duke could wander over to say hi to Marmalade and Cupcake. But I didn't.

It's Cupcake I feel sorry for. She's there, the innocent little virgin amongst our original hens, while Marmalade and Skye, sit in the corner and look experienced and talk about grown-up things.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

As mentioned earlier, while I was away, Iss and our landlords moved home. So I came home from Foreign to a new place to rest my weary SL feet.

And this time, we weren't plonked up in the air on a big slab of chocolate. Now, don't get me wrong, living on a big slab of chocolate is not a problem really. But it does lead to a lot of mucky footprints all through the house, and Buckley was beginning to look a bit portly.

So yeah, our new house. I had expected that our old house would just have been relocated, but no, I got a surprise. Iss had decided to go with a building more suitable for our location. A beachfront section demands a beachfront property. And this is what she duly provided for us.


Personally, I really quite like it. I like the airy feeling with lots of outdoor spaces to sit and watch the waves lap around our toes as the clouds meander by. I do think that perhaps we need a barbecue on that front deck though.

And as for the pooch, like any lab he loves running in and out of the waves.

This how you do it

I have been reading recently about Meara Deschanel's exploits in chicken farming. Today she most kindly agreed to give me a tour of her facility. And believe me, it is a facility.


She's got this whole big barn thing going on (which looks wonderful, btw) with areas for hens and mating pairs and rare chickens and all sorts. And she's got a skybox for baby roosters not yet of mating age. And another skybox filled with chicks.

I was really quite overwhelmed. It's an awesome project. I won't give a slurl for it, because it's her private farm, and that's not my place to do that. If you want a tour, then you'll have to ask her nicely yourself. Just don't bug her about it. Or I'll get in trouble. But you can tell her I said nice things.

Thank you, Meara, for the tour, and for answering all my chick-noob questions :)

The circle of life

As one little chick is taken away from us, so another takes his first breath of life as the egg cracks open.


Marmalade's egg hatched and Iss named the little fella Sparky.

And after the disaster with my first egg I decided to try again. Twice, to make sure. Meet my girl chick McDonald, and my boy chick MacGregor.


So now we have Duke and Pinky, the roosters; Cupcake, Skye and Marmalade, the hens; and Sparky, MacGregor and McDonald, the baby chicks. Iss told me that that's enough for now. Did I mention I'm a bit of an obsessive though? Oops. I promised her just one more for now. I haven't had my rooster, Pinky, be responsible for an egg. And I think he deserves it. So he's currently in with Skye. He doesn't seem interested at the moment. I do hope the name isn't a reflection of his orientation, so to speak...


Oh, here's a question I'd not thought of before - do the hen and the rooster have to be owned by the same person? I'd not thought of that. If so that might present a problem. Skye is owned by Iss. For now. Hehe...

A time to mourn

"I ("unnamed") died because of genetic errors!"

What a terribly sad email to receive first thing when you wake up in a morning. I guess my little egg didn't hatch :(

Was it me? Did I do something wrong? Was my egg too close to Marmalade's? Was it just natural selection?

So many questions. So few answers.

I'll be over here, in this corner, just sitting for a while.

It begins

OK, so I am about six weeks late entering the craze, but I finally got here. And if you've been reading you'll have seen why I was so delayed in grabbing the tailfeathers of the passing band-chicken.

I expected on arriving home and finally getting inworld that I would have to begin from scratch. I have been following various and numerous chicken sagas in blogs and thought I had everything all in place to go and get what I needed. But wait, I arrived home (to our new home, but more about that later) to find a wonderful surprise. Iss had been busy.


There was a rooster coop, and fenched area for hens, and five little chickens - Marmalade, Cupcake and Skye (the hens) and Duke and Pinky (the roosters). She wanted us to have a chicken family already on the go for when I arrived home.

They are all quite young but in the last day or so had reached maturity and Duke, I hear, had been giving Marmalade the glad-eye. She'd resolutely kept her legs crossed though, awaiting my return, it seems.

And I didn't have to wait long. Within five minutes or TP-ing to our new house, she suddenly had an egg %. Duke had done the deed. Iss and I sat there for a bit, explored the new house for a bit, and sat there for a bit. And slowly the egg % crept up and up. Until finally, we had our first egg...


Marmalade is going to be our first mummy hen.

Along with a few other cool welcome home presents from Iss (how lovely is she, eh?) I had a box full of chicken stuff - egg protector things, chicken crates, a bunch of LMs and also some eggs for me.

We put out Marmalade's egg to hatch, along with one of mine. But then jetlag caught up with me and I had to log. The anticipation of logging on today is killing me.