puff is missing

Hi all,

So Puff, our wonderful white chook, has been missing since the day before Andrea got back from her Dublin trip. We have searched everywhere around the neighborhood and can't seem to find her anywhere. We've made fliers and blanketed the area and everyone at this point must think we're quite daft. But we've both become very attached to our little Puff and were hoping to get her back. We haven't given up hope but we were starting to worry about Coco because since Puff left she's been looking rather lonely. So we decided to go and get Coco some new friends.

The Stooges

Coco overseeing the new arrivals.

On Wed. Drea took the afternoon off work, and went to adopt some chickens from the SPCA. They had 3 chooks (hens) and a rooster that they wanted to keep together. The chooks are large birds - pretty tall, and the rooster was this dinky little colorful bantam (little breed of chicken). It was so funny to see them together. The chooks would all herd around the rooster - as if to protect him, but he still looked quite proud.

Bantam Rooster, temporary name - Shemp

We still cant' get over the rooster - he had huge feathers off of his feet, so it looked like he had big slippers on. Drea had a conversation with the woman who worked at the SPCA and she said that she'd never heard this rooster crowing - unlike some other roosters that they had there. So on that advice and since he was so very cute Drea took all 4 of them home. The SPCA woman also said that she thought that roosters fertilized eggs by sitting on them... not the most knowledgeable in chicken procreation apparently. Drea took them home, and Coco did not like her new friends. She was TERRIFIED of them. She got along with the rooster well (but not *too* well if you know what i mean) but the largest chicken with a black top, chased Coco around the coop and pulled 4 feathers out until Drea had enough, and took her out again. Later we, and all our neighbors, found out that the little rooster does indeed crow, and his clock is way off. So we got out of bed around 5:30 and put him back in a dark box which stopped his crowing for a while and included him in the "to return" box with the large aggressive chook, Moe.

Dave read on the internet that you introduce new birds to a flock by putting them in the roost at night when they're sleeping, and then when they wake up in the morning, they're best buds. We took out the big aggressive one, and replaced her with Coco on the roost. When they woke up, Coco was still terrified. Coco is probably 1/3 the size of the chicken she replaced. The three chickens that we had had varying degrees of 'poof' on their heads, so Dave thought we should name them Larry, Moe, Curly and Shemp. Now that we've returned two, we're exploring other naming avenues. For the name we want to fully work, we need our Puff back, though.

Meanwhile, since Puff has been gone, Drea has missed her quality chicken time, so she's chased down Coco and has been keeping her closer.

Yes, this close.

She is now much less afraid of being picked up - not quite as easy as Puff still, but much more so than before.

So this weekend we plan on making sure Coco and the two new ones get along before we leave them outside in the coop. We didn't want to leave them all together without being able to supervise them. Also, we finally got some straw for the coop and it looks a lot better.

We have a bunch of green tomatoes that we salvaged off the plant, although it's really not dead yet at all. We made some Green tomato chutney which came out pretty well. Next step is to try to do a fried green tomato recipe.

We went to a huge used book sale tonight, and then Dave has an ocean fishing trip with some people from work on Sunday. Drea couldn't go because she just can't kill a fish. She can eat it, but she just can't kill it. So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully a little more successful than the fly fishing.

The fires we've been getting going in the evenings make such a difference. Life is better when your house is warmer. Drea's been busy studying for her board exams in August. There's a lot of stuff to review, but she's hitting the books pretty hard.

Well I hope all is well with everyone. Till next time.

Dave and Andrea