Hilarious.

Abby is an in-your-face kind of gal.

I may have mentioned this before, but my chickies are hilarious.  Before I got them, I knew that I would love them, mainly because I love all creatures, no matter how large, small, fluffy, slimy, feathered, stinky, cute, cuddly, mean, spiky, useful, not useful... you get the picture.  (This list, however, has one exception.  Ants.  I hate them.  They were in my house two summers ago, and they are NOT my friends.)  Anyway, I tend to get very emotionally attached to all living creatures, and I knew that my chickens would be no exception. 

HOWEVER.  I had no idea how much I would enjoy them.  They are the funniest little creatures ever!  Everyday, they do something that is so funny I laugh out loud.  Take, for instance, what they did yesterday.  I went out to their coop to check on them before going to school and to give them some whey oatmeal.  I walked into the coop to find Abby and Mabel both trying to squeeze into the nesting box. Now, they have two boxes, but have only ever use one.  I wish I had a picture.  Take my word, they looked pretty silly.  Anyway, they were both trying to squeeze into this one box, which already had an egg in it.  And what were they doing?  Fighting over the egg.  Abby would scoot it over under her, just to have Mabel steal it back.  Abby would look down, notice that she wasn't sitting in the egg anymore, and move it back.  This went back and forth for several minutes until both decided that oatmeal was way cooler than a stupid egg.  Upon closer inspection, it was Mabel's egg so she had rights to it. 

Watching them eat oatmeal and cream of wheat is pretty hilarious too.  I usually "accidentally" make too much oatmeal and cream of wheat just so I can give it to them and watch them eat it.  I also usually add raisins (a snack favorite) and maybe some crushed up egg shells to make sure they're getting enough calcium.  They've learned (quite early on) that generally we have treats for them, so when they're roaming about the yard and see one of us with something in hand, they drop whatever they're doing and dash over to us.  Watching chickens run is hilarious too, by the way.  Here's a video of today's oatmeal feeding:

What's even funnier about them eating oatmeal and cream of wheat is the fact that they get it all over their faces.  When they look at each other, they see food on their sister's faces and start pecking at each other.  When all three hens get into it trying to eat the food off of each other's faces, all chaos ensues.  What's the word of the day?  Hilarious.

Egg update: Two days ago, we hit 100 eggs!  The egg count board is looking quite impressive huh? 

Whey update: I'm down to 1 cup!  Yessss.  I have onion olive bread rising at the moment, which, of course, was made with whey.  I'm pretty tired of figuring out what to do with it.  BUT, no more whey means I get to make more cheese!  This is exciting.  But then I'll have more whey to deal with.  Sigh...