The New Andy Griffith Show

Do you remember those cute little chicks I got in May of this year? Well, take a look at them now.

Ellie with her frog friend. Ellie is a Golden Laced Wyandotte. We have two Wyandottes and they are the most aggressive of all the chickens. Ellie's sister, Juanita, is at the top of the pecking order. She calls all the shots.

Mrs. Mendelbrite - she's my fav. So daring yet gentle. Mrs. M. is always the first one out of the coup, first to do anything and everything. She comes running to me when I go into the backyard. She is supposed to be the largest of all the chickens, but she's the smallest. That doesn't hinder her a bit though. Mrs. M. is a Plymouth Barred Rock.

Hilda Mae. She is also a very gentle soul. I think she has the most adorable face. Hilda Mae is a Black Australorpe. She's a beautiful bird, completely black. But in the sunlight her black feathers have a sheen of various shades of green to them - almost look iridescent.

What a pretty girl. Miss Crump is a Black Sexlink. Now I know you are already wondering what the name is all about. The name was given since they can be sexed after hatching because the females are different in color than the males. We have two Black Sexlinks. They are supposed to be the best layers of all the five breeds that we have. (None of our chickens have actually started laying yet. But this could happen any day now.)

Miss Crump again (on right) and her sister, Thelma Lou, are both Black Sexlinks. All the chickens we have are brown egg layers. I didn't plan it that way, however. And though they will all lay brown eggs, they will not be alike. Some are much darker than others and one of the breeds tends to lay an egg that is pinkish brown.

Four of our eight chickens decided to perch on an old Adirondack chair in the backyard. Cute, huh? But we will have to be especially observant before we sit down here. Mrs. Mendelbrite is, of course at the top. She was the first one on the chair several days ago and now the other chickens have followed her lead. Below Mrs. M. to the left is Clara Edwards, a Rhode Island Red, a breed acclaimed to be a very good and proficient egg layer. In front of Clara is the other Wyandotte, Juanita, and on the other arm of the chair is Miss Crump.

 

Here is a closer look at the four beauties on the chair. The only one I seemed to have missed in my photo shoot is Aunt Bea, Clara Edward's sister (looks just like her), also a Rhode Island Red. By now, I'm sure you have surmised that I named all the chickens after women characters on The Andy Griffith Show from way back in the '60s (my favorite show of all time).

I got this idea to name them when the other Rhodey had a problem with her backside as a chick. She had something called "pasty butt" (no kidding). Naturally I started calling her by that name (Pasty Butt), which just wasn't fair to her. So the idea came to call her Aunt B - the B being short for...well, you know. From there, all the chickens got their names, courtesy of the cast of women that frequented The Andy Griffith Show.

It's funny though, Aunt Bea has really lived up to her name because she had another problem with her backside when she was about 2 1/2 months old. We guessed that a cat must have gotten into the yard and reached through the chicken pen to grab the closest chicken by the tail feathers. Your guessed it. Aunt Bea was the target. She lost all of her tail feathers to that cat, though, thankfully, she did not become his next meal. She is just now getting those tail feathers back in. Hopefully, she can remain healthy in the end!

Speaking of the end - this is it!