Baby Peeper Alert!

So, somehow this became a chicken blog.  But, that's ok, right?

Anyway, Nynaeve has been broody all summer.  Taking pity on me, my mom sent up a couple of fertilized eggs from her flock. 

A few days ago, I came home from work and peeked into the coop to check on Nynaeve when, lo, a teensy tinsy bird face looked back me from under the new mother's suddenly giant wing! 

So now, I present to you Baby Peeper:

The New Flock

It's been a few weeks since we buried Egwene. Since then we've expanded our chicken flock a little bit - up to 3 now! Still no eggs, though...

                               

Nynaeve is the remaining original chicken. She's been broody for the past 2 or 3 months... pretty much the whole summer. She takes a break from egg-sitting duties everyday for about an hour to let the new chickens know that this is HER house and she's the BOSS. 

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This is Mieran. She came from my mother's flock, where she was being, basically, tortured daily by the rooster and other hens. My mom wasn't sure she was going to survive long, and when I first met Mieran, I wasn't either. She has balance issues, her head has been stripped bald, and one of her eyes appeared to be missing and the socket infected.

However, a few days of calm seem to have done wonders for her! Her feathers are growing back in and her eye seems to be healing quite nicely. On top of that, she has developed a bit of spunk. The trauma of her previous life is still fresh, however, and she's yet to lay an egg for us.

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And lastly, this is Siuan. She, too, was getting picked on in her original flock, so her previous home put her up for "adoption" on Craigslist. She came with the name "Speckle", for obvious reasons. (Before learning this, my neighbors, who fell madly in love with her at first sight, suggested the name "Midnight Speckle".) We renamed her Siuan, because we're big nerds.

Siuan is just 4 months old, and thus not yet laying. But she could start any day now!

She's still at the bottom of the pecking order here, but she doesn't seem to mind.  All in all, the 3 birds seem to be getting along pretty well, with only very occasional bouts of bullying.