Meet the little girls

These are the little girls, Mary, Margaret and Prudence. We've gone with a mid-century Catholic nun naming theme. Seemed appropriate since we started with Agnes. We're calling them all Aggie, Maggie, Mary and Pru for short. I picked up these three little hellions from a woman named Irene and her husband in Marysville. They must have 100 - 150 birds free ranging on their 5 acres. They've got bantams, standard hens, ducks, turkeys and geese in every size, color and breed that I've ever seen.

Irene went out and rounded up 7 little girls for me to choose from on Friday night when they were sleeping (these girls are not tame by any means). I chose these three for their color, personalities and similar ages. Hopefully they are all in fact girls - if we do have a boy in the mix we should know sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This possibility, and giving them the ability to stay warm together, is why I got 3 instead of just 2. I originally wanted 3 hens total - this way I'll either end up with 3 or 4 hopefully, and 4 is an okay number.

Mary is all white, and has no real tail. Maggie is black and gold and at least part Polish, and looks to have a top hat starting. Prudence is the most muted with gray and black coloring, and shy, of the three little girls. She's always hiding behind one of her sisters.

Saturday night they bedded down in the straw on the ground instead of going up into the roost box. I rounded them up about 9:30 pm and put them in. Total chaos due to my headlamp - learned the lesson on that one. But they eventually all found each other and made a nice little nest in the straw. Tonight, I was hoping they would figure it out, and they did! So proud. I just have to wonder how old they'll be before the figure out the roost bar... Maybe they'll learn soon by watching Agnes - I'm sure it's warmer up off of the floor...