The Loy menagerie has added a new species. Chickens.
The “why” is a long story — well, no, actually it’s a short story: Becky is insane 🙂 — but the bottom line is that, for the moment, we have four chickens
(the three seen above, all a month or so old, and the baby one, seen at right) living in a plastic tub inside a dog kennel in the downstairs play room. Eventually, they’ll move to a recently-purchased chicken coop in our yard, and in due course, they’ll start laying eggs, which we will eat. (Yes, they’re hens, not roosters.)
The baby chicken already has a name: “Little Chicken Foo-Foo.” (“Foo-Foo” for short, I guess.) She was so named by Loyette, who initially wanted to call her “Little Bunny Foo-Foo,” until Becky gently pointed out that it would perhaps be a bit silly to have a chicken named “bunny.” Loyette, undeterred, promptly suggested “Little Chicken Foo-Foo” as an alternative, and there you go.
The other three still need names, though. Becky didn’t much care for my suggestion of Arwen, Eowyn and Galadriel, and she’s rejected outright any variations of “Jimmer.” Meanwhile, I’m not too fond of her Greek mythology suggestion of Atropos, Lachesis and Clotho. (I wasn’t in T.O., dammit!) So I thought we’d throw the question open to the Internet. Any ideas for what to name three chickens?
Incidentally, the baby is a Silkie; the beige one is an Easter Egger; the reddish one is a Rhode Island Red; and the black one is an Australorp.
P.S. Oh, I almost forgot. We have a Live ChickenCam.
That light has to be on 24/7 because, for the moment, it’s their heat source, and the baby in particular needs to stay warm. I fear that, between the endless daylight and the on-and-off presence of our cats lurking on the other side of the kennel gate, we’re going to turn them into the most neurotic chickens ever. We may be unwittingly running some sort of Chicken Gitmo here. #PANIC!
UPDATE: We’ve settled on names. David’s suggestion (originally voiced on Twitter) wins: the Australorp (the black one) is “Flora,” the Rhode Island Red (the red/brown one) is “Fauna,” and the Easter Egger (the white one) is “Merryweather.”
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup
Fauna, Flora, and Merriwether
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.
Hot Wings, KFC, and Drumstick.
Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3.
Kirk, Picard, and Sisko (or Janeway or Archer… c’mon, back to your roots!)
I’m sure I’ll be adding more as I think of them…
Popeye, Colonel, Fil’A
If you suspend that feeder, you might find less mess from the chicks climbing on the feeder and making tossed salad from the food/bedding/poo.
Ginny, Hermione, and Luna
Irish, Trojan, and Sun Devil
Nancy, Hillary, and Sarah
Miss Muffet, Little Bo Peep, and Jill
Carmen, Miranda, and Chiquita
The Dixie Chicks
lol Josh, I totally started typing “Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner” when I scrolled up and saw you beat me to it!
Blood, Sweat, and Tears?
Double, Trouble, and Toil?
Wedge, Biggs, and Luke? (Wait, I crossed the geek streams! Oh noooo…)
Cassandra, Helen, and Briseis–Yes, it’s mythological, but it also has a Trojan connection. See, now Becky’s happy and you get to live. 😉
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
Balrog, Sauron, George W
Chicken number 1, Chicken number 2, Chicken number 3
Lotoya, Tito, Jermaine
I third breakfast lunch and dinner.
After just witnessing ND’s awesome defeat of UConn, I nominate Skylar, Devereaux, and Muffet.
These are hens not roosters guys, male names might not work exactly.
David, I really don’t think that’s such the issue you seem to think it is.
In the way-back-when, when my rugrats were much smaller, we got ’em a pet rabbit – which was duly named with a good Scots name – Stewart … and, whenever it misbehaved, it was known by its nickname … (tho we never actually turned it into its nickname) …
In homage to Elder Loy, perhaps you could name ’em Urth, Verthandi, and Skuld …
Or Cacciatore, Casserole, and Cordon Bleu …
Of course, with Foo-Foo already named, does that rule out female variations on Athos, Porthos, and Aramis ? (which I just realised Casey put forth seventh )
Are they sufiiciently cute to be named Veni, Vidi, and Vici ?
I’m sorta surprised you’re not naming ’em for iPhone OS’s …
Of course, the Rhode Island Red should be Chafee … the others are nowhere near as obvious …
And, lest there be any doubt, kudos to Becky for recognising the increasing importance of producing at least part of your family’s own nutrition ! (If I was cynical, I might speculate upon how well-insured Brendan is, Life-Insurance-wise – and how high his cholesterol might be – but Becky’s not like that … (innocent smile))
“In homage to Elder Loy, perhaps you could name ‘em Urth, Verthandi, and Skuld ”
Young padawan Alasdair, granted I’m somewhat Elderly but I’m still not quite the fookin’ Eldar; i.e. whadoo I looklike here, some kinda Old Norse Mythos? [Don’t Answer that. :] Iow Urth, Schmurth: you Impale me upon the Norns of a Trilemma. and your Nornative principles pale before Even those of the Nornan invaders. Fie. ;>
Brendan: Luck, Pluck, and CluckCluckCluck. :}
So, you’re in favor of Tolkien’s mythology as a naming structure, but not Greek myth? I think this might be an appropriate time to point out that somewhere around half of your regular commenters who are USC alumni were T.O. people…
Venerable Loy – Are you telling me that Those Three are *not* the Progenetrixen of the Norn Oirish ?
I’m curious — what are the material benefits from owning the chickens? Do they lay eggs fairly often? Or are you gonna eat ’em?
Casey: the chickens are obviously a mid-season replacement for Brendan’s constant tweets.
LOL, esteemed Alasdair! 🙂 Progenitrixen, indeed. Are you telling me that all those dour & devout Norn Iron Presbyterians were actually Laid there? ;> And here I always heard they were Planted. (Plantatered?) I’d continue but I don’t wanna Egg you on.
(Btw, my computer’s Oxford Americvan Dictionary lists – no really, verbatim –
“progenitor |prəˈjenətər; prō-|
noun
a person or thing from which a person, animal, or plant is descended or originates; an ancestor or parent : his sons and daughters were the progenitors of many of Scotland’s leading noble families.” 🙂
(grin) As opposed to Scotland’s ordinary noble families, right ?
Have you not heard the expression of Celtic origin – Better Laid Than Never ?
kcatnd #17 – kudos on the topical yet deeply significant pun !
@Casey, chickens are great! When they mature enough to lay, we should get 12-20 eggs/week depending on the weather; they tend to lay less in temperature extremes. They’ll probably lay like that for 2-3 years and then their production slows and eventually stops, at which time they go to chicken heaven and we get a new batch. They also eat some kitchen scraps and if you’re far more committed than we are, you can use their poop as fertilizer for lawns and gardens. Some breeds are better to eat than others. All of ours wouldn’t make for very good eating, unfortunately. Brendan thinks I’m callous to even consider eating our chickens, but really, I’m all about keeping food producing animals around. I love scrambled eggs and quiche and omelettes and souffle and hard boiled eggs and mmmm, everything egg-related. 🙂
I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WANT TO EAT FOO-FOO!!!!
😛
I love eggs. And chicken. And the chicken we eat comes from somewhere.
I’m pretty much not hung up on where the food comes from. I’ll eat venison no problem.
I second #22 !
Bambi and Thumper are *delicious* !
Becky – have you considered making the beyond laying date ones for simmering in a curry ? That tenderises even the toughest old birds (tho I doubt even Vindaloo could do anything about former Speaker Pelosi), and, for those of us that enjoy a good curry, makes for an excellent meal …
I think i’d be weirded out eating somethign I’d kept as a pet, even a chicken.
True – it would have to be weird, eating something with a demonstrated higher intelligence …
(douce grin)
You guys keep confusing me with your chicken cam! It keeps MOVING!!!!! Its like I think I know what’s going on, and then it moooooves!
#PANIC!
Last night I was cleaning out the chickens’ cage (if you’d been watching at around 11pm Mountain Time, you’d have gotten a real show), and in the process of that I ended up relocating the cam.
@Alasdair, while I don’t have qualms about eating the chickens, I do think it might be a bit challenging to slaughter them without making a huge mess. I think it might be more trouble than it’s worth and I think I’d rather let someone else deal with the challenges of that crap for a couple pounds of tough chicken.
Laying hens past their prime are perfect for Coq au Vin…the recipe was created for them.
Yes Alasdair a chicken WOULD have a higher intelligence than you.
Becky #28 – so you’re not guano eat ’em, then ?
I can’t imagine slaughtering a chicken is all that much more messy than gutting a fish after it’s been caught. Put the bird down on its side and take a cleaver to the neck, should be a pretty quick death with blood flow volume and direction very controllable. Plucking the feathers sounds like it’d be the difficult part, but I’m sure you could google the proper methods for doing that efficiently.
Yummy yummy fresh chicken eggs…
Do be warned that if you take AML’s advice, you’re liable to be rocketed around the room for hours by uncontrollable high velocity arterial chicken blood jets. I heard this happened to Gary Coleman once.
I should probably post an update to say that we’ve settled on names. David’s suggestion (originally voiced on Twitter) wins: the Australorp (the black one) is “Flora,” the Rhode Island Red (the red/brown one) is “Fauna,” and the Easter Egger (the white one) is “Merryweather.”
those chickens really are old enough for an outside coop, how much longer will they be imprisoned in your basement?
Soon! We’re just waiting for the weather to get a little warmer, for Foo-Foo’s sake (she’s several weeks younger than the others, in addition to being naturally smaller because of her breed). At least Foo-Foo is now big enough that she can’t easily slip through the bars of the cage, so we’ve take out the plastic tub and are now letting them roam free around the cage.
Oh – and they’re not in the basement. They’re in the corner of upstairs play room. They get lots of attention from us, the kids, and, of course, the cats. 😛
Yeah, we’re supposed to get snow tonight, so I think we might keep them inside for another week until around Mother’s Day. We also want to build them an extended run but because FooFoo is a bantam (so her top weight will be about 2 pounds), we need to reinforce our fence line with some chicken wire so she can’t get out and also, so the neighborhood cats can’t get in.
Curiosity: will the “extended run” be a fully-enclosed chicken coop of some shape ? Cats can jump impressive distances, and can climb, too, given attractive nuisances …
I would also wonder about predators like greater owls and various forms of hawks and falcons …
Hmmmmm … brendan.dindins.org … isn’t that just a bit blatant, Counselor ? (grin)
Our hens were surprised one morning when the neighborhood cat dared to have her kittens in a corner of their fenced run. They did some serious damage to the momma cat – enough that she never came back, and the kittens were perforated to death.
They’ve also survived a week of ~20 degree nights, poking holes in 1″ ice to get their water. They’re tougher than they look.
By an interesting coincidence, it seems this happened recently …
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