Our newest chicken, Candace.

On Sept 24th, we brought home out brand new gal, Candace! She's a 7mth old Ameraucana (Easter Egger if you prefer), and she has the most gorgeous coloring. And yes she's named after the sister on the TV show Phineas and Ferb!

Candace, once she's laying, will hopefully lay gorgeous light blue eggs for us to collect from the new coop...yes new coop. I'm about to construct a new one soon! The one we have is really just not the perfect solution for our very small flock that free range almost all day long in our backyard. And with us renting we want to make sure when it's time for us to leave, we don't leave behind any areas where the grass has been killed off because of our doing.

Anyhoo, back to our precious new gal!

She's getting a little more tame and used to rambunctious children, and so JBug is able to catch her occasionally on his own. She's started returning to her little temporary coop in the evening as it gets dark, so we don't even need to round her back up again!

However she's not 100% okay with the attention she receives just yet. Here she is pushing off his hands and flying off to freedom (in the yard of course). Sometimes she can be seen standing on his hands/ lap when Missy is nowhere around! Doesn't she look huge in this photo?! She's definitely bigger than the bantams, but smaller than our Marans, who is really a hefty girl.

So far the our three gals will tolerate her, so long as she doesn't:

• eat food they may consider eating, either now or at some point in the future,
• drink from their waterer,
• be in the spot they might want to be in,
• be too close to them.

So all in all, integration into the mini-flock going as expected but not quite as well as I hoped, lol!

Oddly enough it's our tiniest chicken that is actually the meannie of the bunch. Sadly the other two are following her lead, but it really surprised me that Meep is the one to go and seek a fight with Candace! I would have imagined Candace would look at her and squawk " I can eat you for breakfast you puny little thing." and they'd both know she was bigger and stronger and not work fighting with! Boy was I wrong! 

It's a good thing Candace is FAST and used to roaming quite freely, as she can definitely outrun them.

Hopefully if we keep them separate at night and free ranging together every day they will slowly come to accept her into their flock. If not, the new coop may end up being a more like two townhouses!

Little Man loves to sit and watch the chickens when they're in their coop. He can't pedal so JBug pushes him around the yard on Missy's bike and then he gets parked in front of the coop. And he just sits there watching them for ages and ages. When he's done and ready to move on he shouts for his big brother to move him!