# Little tiny ladies, Part II



## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

My replacement lavender orpington and her two companions (another lavender and a buff) have hatched and the hatchery has given me a tracking number for a one day priority express package. Sometime tomorrow the post office will call once again the tell me that I have a chirping box waiting for me. What was I thinking?

I do think I have figured out a decent way to divide the brooder pen since I am not ready to toss Phoebe, Miriam and Hannah out into the big world outside to sleep. They are not fully feathered yet but are making progress.

No pictures of course, but promises to post them when they arrive.


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## Asta's Mom (Aug 20, 2014)

How exciting - more chicks. Do you have names picked yet?


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

They're here!

Here is our first look.









Having made them drink I set them into their space in the divided brooder. Everyone can hear each other so hopefully that will help with integrating this group. But it is amazing how much they first group has grown in just over three weeks!









Here is a little video of them in the shipping box. 

https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=A4uM3L3m2bo&video_referrer=watch

I haven't really decided about names yet. Do you think it would be weird or a jinx to reuse Naomi (maybe for the buff?)? I also was thinking about calling one of them Rebekkah after the bird from my first batch that turned out to be a rooster by mistake and had to be rehomed. Otherwise nothing settled....


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

Your photos really make me want to have my own chickens but I can't have any more pets especially small ones. Lucky would probably chase them and bat at them. He tries to do this with egrets and ducks. It too cool that your dogs get along so well with them. 


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Everybody is good this morning! I spent time to provide fresh water and food, clean out the mess the older girls make in their waterer and the like. I know the bigger girls and the tinies are well aware of each other since they can hear each other, so I decided to do a quick test of how they would get along if they were all together. I took each of the three older birds and put her in with the little ones. Two of them (Phoebe and Miriam) were very relaxed and just looked at the little ones. Hannah was a little aggressive and made a little grab at the foot of the little buff girl so I cut that off super fast when the little one squeaked unhappily.

The three little ones mostly just sat quietly looking at the relatively gigantic new neighbor. They gave right eye looks though so they were curious more than afraid. Left eye look ups are indicators of worry about what is around apparently.

My plan at this point is to get the older girls outside on Monday or Tuesday depending on the weather and the feathering out on their heads. I will use the combination of a wire dog crate in the coop, the ex pen and the old coop to handle that transition now (and later for the youngest birds). By the time I get the teenagers outside the littlest littles will appreciate having the whole brooder pen for themselves.

Still thinking on names...


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

When we saw photos of Kit's siblings we didn't know who we were gonna get. We did see a dog who had a smooshy snout in comparison to the others so we nicked named that one little smooshy. The day we met Kit I was like look it is little smooshy and it made us laugh. I still call her smooshy from time to time.


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

The difference in size and features between the new chicks and the slightly older ones is amazing. They grow up quickly. And they are so cute. 

I don't see any reason to use the same name. It wasn't like you had her for a long time and you can use it to memorialize the first bird.


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

You are one busy lady!


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## rj16 (Jan 30, 2017)

Oye! They are just as cute as the first batch! It's incredible how fast they grow. I don't see any reason to not name one of them Noami and as a Rebecca, I'd be happy to share my name with a chick. Lol! Is there a significant chance one of these turns out to be a rooster? I imagine they do some kind of sexing before shipping them out.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

rj16 they do sex them if you order all hens that is what you should get, but some breeds are a bit harder to tell with when they hatch (including Ameraucanas, which is what the roo was).

One of the lavenders got her foot caught in something while I was at my training club this morning. I think she will be okay, but it is pretty sore looking. Poor little girl.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Well as it turns out BF's back is really bad so I didn't want to leave him alone tonight to go to class. I sent them an email to cancel and am now in for the evening to do double nursing duty for sore foot girl and BF, who probably wouldn't have been able to move enough to feed the dogs had I gone to work.


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

I hope both your patients are feeling better soon. It really is horrible when you back is sore and it takes so long for the pain to dissipate.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Well I just checked on the tiny patient and she had jumped out of the shipping box which I had put her in to keep her quiet and a little closer to the warming element. I looked at her foot and already a lot of the redness and swelling has dissipated. Really only one toe looks bad right now and I bet with all the metabolic work that these tiny little things do every day it will be in pretty good shape in the morning. I put her back in the box since it is getting dark enough that they should go to sleep any time now, but I can hear her giving an alarm call. They freak out when they find themselves alone at this small size and young age. 

BF is stuck flat on his back in bed. He has taken some advil (but should probably take more) and has been using ice, but I think all I can say is that he is not really worse. He is not the best patient in the world.


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## MollyMuiMa (Oct 13, 2012)

Well Nurse Catherine, hope your weekend is not fraught with difficult patients and everybody appreciates your loving care! LOL! Yeah, may the heating pad and frozen pea Gods smile on Ya!:nurse:


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Molly and Skylar thanks for wishing me luck on the nursing duties. BF slept through the night which I take as a good sign. He is no worse, but maybe not really better this morning. Thankfully he abandoned his idea that he was going to show up at work to demonstrate that he couldn't be at work concept and just sent a text to the store manager. There is one other person working today who can do sales, but no repairs, so the repairs will just have to wait. One thing I learned in December when I had my medical event was that there is no point in hurting yourself by trying to go to work when you really should be resting. The world doesn't end.

The little girl with the hurt toe went to sleep with a good full crop last night and she looks pretty chipper this morning. Her one toe is still sore and as chickens do innately (from a very young age) the others keep wanting to poke at it so I will leave her in the separate box as she is willing to stay there for the day. I made up some loose wet food with gro gel (probiotic) and plenty of water and did get her to take some of that this morning. I think I will have to keep checking her to see that she is eating. I may also take the older girls outside with me later and put the other two little ones on the other side of the divider and take the little patient out of the box so she can access the regular food and water. She clearly understands the feeder and waterer that are in her regular area, but I am not so sure she understands the little container of loose cereal as a place to get nourished.


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## Charmed (Aug 4, 2014)

So nice to hear about more new chickies. If Sore Toe gets to the point of needing ointment/spray-on med, one trick we learned was to put the spray (lightly) on each chick... that way the chicks won't peck on Sore Toe. It's another one of those tips that sounds stupid, but it works. You are getting to be such an old hand now, you probably don't need any advice. Oh, I also have no problem using those good names over. Hope boyfriend feels better soon.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Charmed, thanks for that tip about spraying each of the chicks. I wouldn't have thought of it but it makes perfect sense since they are so driven by not liking the things that are different from the norm. I made a little bit of a homemade version of blu-kote. You mix a bit of honey with a drop or two of lemon essential oil and blue food coloring. I dabbed a bit of it on the sore toe and aside from looking blue it looks great this morning. She looks happy and nobody is picking at her toe (one problem solved apparently). BF's back seems to be improving, but he has a way to go. Thanks for your good wishes.

I will probably use those names again and I need one more, but in the meantime they are tiny buff (since one of the teens is a buff too), sore toe and normal.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

Emma/Emily? Glad to hear BF is better. Keep up the ice therapy. It does help.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

We can't do Emily since BF's daughter is an Emily and I suspect she might not like the idea. Emma is a possibility. 

Keep the ideas coming folks. I will name them when they are older and big enough for me to put leg bands on them to identify them. The only one in my whole flock who is easily identified by her appearance is Sarah, my dark blue Ameraucana. The two buff and two lavendar orpingtons will be essentially identical. Ruth and Rachel the light blue Ameraucanas are so similar it is hard to separately id them. I also think the two blue splash marans (Hannah and Miriam) are going to be very very similar in appearance.


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

Do you like Buffy? Like the blonde color and maybe you could name the strongest blonde Buffy... like the vampire slayer from the 90s. I really loved that show. If you liked it too you could name the a red one Willow and the silly one Xander. 


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

My general theme for all of my birds has been Old Testament women (since they are strong of character (mostly) and closely connected to the land). So we currently have Sarah, Ruth, Rachel, Hannah, Phoebe and Miriam. My bird that turned out to be a roo was Rebekkah and the bird who passed over the winter was Salome. Salome was the sweetest girl and best layer, so I sort of feel like I should retire her name.


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## Bevvie (Jun 17, 2017)

Love the biblical theme in naming the girls. 

Your chicken rearing reminds me of days on the farm when we would come home from the hatchery with a car full of cheeping, peeping little chicks. Their sweet smell stays with me still. 

But, I have a question for you Lily. Backyard chicken rearing here in Toronto hit the proverbial chicken-no-go bylaws awhile back. The tide is currently turning and there is some expected amendment by the fall but only for certain areas of the city. I know that Long Island is a densely populated area and was curious as to how any bylaws affect or don’t affect backyard chicken rearing. 

Hoping you can shed some light on that and also hoping little Miss Sore-Foot is fully recovered.


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

lily cd re said:


> My general theme for all of my birds has been Old Testament women (since they are strong of character (mostly) and closely connected to the land). So we currently have Sarah, Ruth, Rachel, Hannah, Phoebe and Miriam. My bird that turned out to be a roo was Rebekkah and the bird who passed over the winter was Salome. Salome was the sweetest girl and best layer, so I sort of feel like I should retire her name.


I nominate Esther


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Bevvie said:


> Love the biblical theme in naming the girls.
> 
> Your chicken rearing reminds me of days on the farm when we would come home from the hatchery with a car full of cheeping, peeping little chicks. Their sweet smell stays with me still.
> 
> ...


I hear you on that question. We live in Suffolk County (eastern end of the island, although we are in the western part). there are still a few small farms and many horse farms and private horse properties in a close radius to us. In my township we are allowed to keep up to 8 hens (so I will be over limit by one, but I don't think they will check on me), no roosters and we are not allowed to sell our eggs. Since we will be swamped with eggs I will be giving more to neighbors than I have (so they won't report me for being over LOL) and I will also give to the food bank at my college. In Nassau County there is one township that doesn't allow chickens at all, but the other two do. I believe it is also allowed to have chickens in New York City although I am not sure of the restrictions on numbers, etc.

Sore toe looks really good today. All of the swelling has gone down. She has a blue foot, but nobody seems to care and she is integrated back with her little sisters fully. The bigger girls are getting closer to being able to move outside. Although I love the littles and watching them grow I can't wait until they are all out the door and I can reclaim the office and hope to have clean floors for more than an hour or two. They are terrible slobs!

I like Esther too. That may be it!


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

I read the beginning and middle part of this thread and missed what happened to your BF. Back injuries are difficult because it takes a long time to fix. I got into a car accident with a drunken tourist in 2013 where I was the front passenger. Everyone was fine except me. I herniated my spinal disc L3-L5, which is the spinal lumbar. 

I was out of commission for at least a solid month and especially after the fact. It seemed like the pain got worse before it got better and it dragged on forever. I hope my experience can be useful to you guys. The issue with back pain is that every position hurt: sitting, laying down, or even standing. I was extra grumpy because I couldn't go anywhere. On days when it got really bad, I would take two pills of Alieve along with two pills of prescription Tylenol with codeine. This combo helped me sleep through the night. I was also prescribed a topical pain med that was 10x the usual strength from a compounding pharmacy which worked ok. Molly's heating pad recommendation is probably the best short term option. 

The best remedy for me was the physical therapy or quite frankly doing exercises on your own at home or at the gym. I've found that this is the only long term solution. Building up your back muscles prevent a lot of future issues which flares up every now and then. At the end of the month mark, I got stir crazy and decided to purchase a back brace to make my life tolerable but turned down the cortisone shot in the spine. I don't know the details of your bf's injury but one of the most important lessons I recall was not sitting or laying in one position for too long. It was important to get up and move because being in one position for too long exacerbates the pain. I didn't want to do this because it seemed counterintuitive and the pain was excruciating, but in the end, I felt better. Hope this helps!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

snow thanks for your thoughts on back issues. His is a chronic sort of a thing, mostly fine with occasional flare ups like this. He is taking advil (no aleve because of his asthma) and doing cold b=packs to reduce inflammation as recommended by the chiropractor who he uses (the wife of a colleague of mine).


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## lisasgirl (May 27, 2010)

Wait, you can't use Aleve if you have asthma? Why's that?

Also, YAY CHICKIES! It'd be cute to have a side-by-side comparison since they're all different ages now. I never really thought about how quickly they grow up - there's such a difference between the big chicks and the little ones, and they're only a few weeks apart in age.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

lisasgirl I just took a very quick look on WebMD (not the most authoritative source, but quick) and it actually recommends that asthmatics take no NSAIDs at all and notes that there can be a sort of delayed adverse immune response that can cause airway constriction (potentially fatal). I know aleve has a warning on the label, but I don't think advil or other ibuprofens do.

That idea of a group photo is a good one. I will try at least to line up the two buff orpingtons tomorrow. The tinies are too small to take outside yet.


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## Muggles (Mar 14, 2015)

Ibuprofen has a warning for asthmatics in Australia (a 'do not take unless advised by doctor'). I have moderate asthma but take it with no problems. 

Group photo of the chooks sounds great!


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

As do I. My asthma is exercised induced. I have read the warnings and asked my doctor about the nsaids in the past, but he said I should know if they bother me by now, and they do not.


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## MollyMuiMa (Oct 13, 2012)

Had some fun looking up biblical names......

Debra.......(nursemaid to Rebekah) another Debra..... (the only female Judge of pre-
monarchic Israel in the Old 
Testament) 
Sarah.......(Wife of Abraham) 
Dinah........(daughter of Jacob)
Hagar........(handmaiden to Sarah)
Jezebel......(Queen of the Persian Empire)
Orpah........(Sister-in-Law to Ruth)
Abigail........(Sister of David)
Phoebe.......( a Church Deaconess)
Delilah.........(the woman Sampson loved)
Esther.........(Queen of the Persian Empire)
Leah...........(First wife of Jacob)
Lydia (of Thyatira)..........(one of the first to convert to Christianity)

AND LAST just to raise a few eyebrows.......GOMER ...........(the wife of Hosea and also 
a prostitute)


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

I forgot about your biblical theme. I was wondering about the life expectancy of chickens and asked Siri to search the web. Someone on the site I checked said a silkie lived to be 22! 5-7 years the average, 10 years not uncommon in a well cared for pet chicken. Long life to the little ladies!


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

MollyMuiMa said:


> Had some fun looking up biblical names......
> 
> Debra.......(nursemaid to Rebekah) another Debra..... (the only female Judge of pre-
> monarchic Israel in the Old
> ...


Let us not forget the fascinating and tragic and beautiful Rachel, Leah's sister.

https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Rachel

And have you heard Oprah say that her mother meant to be naming her after the woman in the Bible...but misspelled it.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I have a Rachel! She is one of my older birds along with Ruth and Sarah. Rachel so far has been the friendliest to the teenagers when I've had them outside. Today they were actually friendly not just passing by with a suspicious eye to each other. The teenagers are Hannah, Miriam and Phoebe. I think the three babies will be Naomi, Rebekkah and Esther, but who will get which name I am still up in the air about.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

First and off the main topic, I am happy to say BF went to work (shortish day) on Thursday and did okay. He is off on Friday and took it easy, but went to work yesterday (also shorter day) with no problems. He also went out to meet his friends this morning for R/C car racing and seems just fine.

Here are pictures, taken this morning, of the two buff orpingtons for comparison. The little one is just over ten days old and the big girl (Phoebe) will be five weeks old tomorrow. The little girl is mostly still just down and the older girl is mostly feathered, although not much on the head yet. This is a funny awkward stage for them where they still look and act a lot like babies but also are starting to look like grown ups.


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

I had an auntie named Naomi...sold Avon products way back when. And had "bottle blonde" hair in the days when the home tinted results were pretty garish!

I vote for Naomi for the little buff orpington.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

The do look like the blondes!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

They are sort of strawberry blondes. I think the little buff will be Naomi since I don't guess that I want to put that name back on one of the lavenders. Out of my nine birds I have two of each of my breeds that look super similar. The orpingtons will be virtually identical and the marans are both looking a lot alike. I can still tell them apart by how much feathering they have on their feet, but that is likely to change soon. I used to have snap on leg bands on Ruth and Rachel to help people tell them apart (I know which is which but nobody else does) but they managed to get them off. In anticipation of having to put identification markers on the youngsters I ordered these little chicken charms that are on zip ties. I will put them on Ruth and Rachel this week so I can see how they work. There are a number of different basic charms (flowers, lady bugs, butterflies...) and different zip tie colors. I will make sure I use different zip tie colors on the members of each look alike pair of birds to make it easy for BF and house sitters to tell who's who. the charms are more of a cuteness factor for me.


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## mashaphan (Sep 4, 2014)

and of course,there is always Martha!:amen:


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## Beautiful Blue (Apr 24, 2017)

Are the chicks wearing their bling ?


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Not yet, I have to wait for the littles to be fully grown so that I adjust the size right on their legs.


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