I have written before about how much I enjoy our chickens. We have free range layer hens, a small flock of them, who wander our property all year long. They have a lovely coop and fenced yard, but during the day, the coop is open to let them wander as they wish. Once in a while, one may be taken by a fox, which we hate, but we feel it is better for the chickens to be able to wander.

This year two young hens joined our aging flock. Each year 1-2 of them come new to the flock, as we usually lose 1-2 a year due to old age or a fox. Now, hens don’t lay eggs immediately, they have to be at least six months old to start laying. Once they start, it is a bit slow for a while. Once layers get really into their stride, most of them lay one egg about every day and a half.

Our newbies, Arucanas, have just started laying eggs. The first tiny blue egg made us smile. Now, we are getting at least one blue egg a day.

Yesterday, one of the babies and two of the older hens decided to lay their eggs in the hay barn.

Now, they have beautiful nesting boxes in the coop, but obviously yesterday it seemed better to hunker down in the hay.

One of our new hens is this beautiful black Arucana. She is just gorgeous. She loves to walk around the garlic bed.

Soon after she started free-ranging, we noticed something about her. She likes to be with people. She likes to walk around with us, “talking” to us. Imagine our surprise when she started squatting down near us, clearly wanting to be carried. Fluffy, our beloved Fluffy, used to love to be carried. So this newbie waited for us to figure it out, then was happily carried back to the coop.

Now she gets carried every day, cooing to us as we carry her. So she has a new name (usually we don’t name the chickens anymore), she is Fluffy 2, usually just called 2 now.

Yes, 2 took a selfie. Isn’t she gorgeous?