Chickens! Chickens!! Chickens!!! They are such wonderful creatures and you can spend days just observing them. As a friend noted the other day, it’s good that we had these ladies here ahead of time to keep us occupied when the lockdown came in. They have kept us engaged through their antics and kept us protein-feed through their eggs. Let me have the honour of introducing you to our three beautiful ladies who have been with us since February, 2020.

Dino-Tok tok, Cheetah & Zonnetje (from left to right)

Our 3 chickenteers have settled in very well with us and I look forward to bringing you further updates of their antics. I grew up having chickens at home in Ghana but I don’t think I paid them as much attention as these ladies. Now, I feel like I am becoming a Chicken Sociologist after many hours of (non) participant observations…perhaps it is time to move to the interview and focus group discussion phase. For now, here is a quick short description of them.

Cheetah

The name Cheetah was chosen by my son (Joshua) because of the strips. The most important reason was because at that time of the chickens’ arrival, Joshua was into big wild cats and his favorite was the Cheetah. As it turned out in the end, this was a most apt name for this chicken because…oh boy can she run!. She outrans the other chickens at the sound and sight of food. She is bold, fearless and have no qualms about walking straight into our house even without invitation.

Zonnetje

In my view this is the most cheeky of the bunch. Her name Zonnetje – little sun(shine) – was given by my daughter (Zoë). Zonnetje is a fluffy ball of cuteness and mesmerising cheekiness. She has a real character and was the first to lay eggs. Fortunately or unfortunately, she is also the only one to become broody this spring and has stopped laying eggs. Now all she wants to do is to sit in the coop brooding over non-existing eggs and waiting for her chicks to hatch . It is part sad to see and part funny that she just sits on the floor or on the roof of the coop whenever she feels broody. Hopefully, she will get out of this broodiness soon.

Dino-Tok tok

We did a bit of crowd-sourcing for part of her name and then my son (Daniel) was happy to christen this chicken as Dino-Tok tok. Dino is in reference to the theory that chickens are descended from dinosaurs and Tok tok is just for the sound of chicks. She is the most consistent egg layer and a big explorer in the garden. Sometimes, she stands at the garden gate looking longingly at the playground and wondering what is on the other side (at least I think that is what she is thinking). She has actually made the slip to the neighbours’ garden and to the playground when we left the gate open.

 

Here are some videos of them having a good time…

 

 

 

 

A slide show of pictures…

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