We Have Chickens!

After a long planning period.
And an even longer production period.
WE HAVE CHICKENS!

Couldn't be more excited about how everything has come together.

Diamond is a wonderful dog.  Could not have asked for a better companion for my daughter.

The chickens are great. (posting without pic today because I cannot find my camera cord - will repost tomorrow with pics.).

We have Becky (named after my grandmother's chicken).

Then there's Bonnie (because she tried to break out of the coop as soon as they got there.

Then Lily (what my daughter considers the prettiest)

And last in the pecking order (more on that in a minute) Lucy.

Becky and Lucy are fancy Buff Orphingtons - they have the feathers on their feet and are almost the coloring of Rhode Island Reds to me.

The Amerucanas are Bonnie and Lily.  Bonnie laid our first egg yesterday within a couple of hours of coming to the house, which probably explains why she tried to bust out of the coop.

Each of the kids reacted differently:

• Trinity likes to go in the coop.  She goes in and just stands and watches them, but hasn't gotten up the nerve to touch them yet. 
• Tony watches them from outside the coop.  He sat in the shade yesterday with his Dr. Pepper and Sour Cream & Onion chips and watched them for a long time. 
• Diamond didn't pay much attention to them - she just sat watching them for a few minutes then took a nap next to Tony.  Later in the evening she started "playing" chase around the coop getting the ladies all riled-up but the caught on and started ignoring her.

Yesterday you could tell Becky was in charge.  She ran the others away if they found a good bug spot.  At first I thought it was because she was the biggest, but now I think it's because she's the smartest.  She has figured out I come and go from the door, so she paces back and forth by the door looking for a way out.  Then Bonnie is next in the order, only because I've seen Lily run away from her.  Then Lily and then Lucy.  The reason I think Lucy is last is because last night when all the other chickens went into the roost for the night Lucy stayed on the outside - sitting on the door.  Tried to simply get her off the door and let her go in the roost, but she was having no part of my plan.  So I had to grab her - remembering everything I've ever read, done or seen about holding birds and put her in the roost.  It actually wasn't that bad.  She really didn't give that much of a fight, but I could tell by the way she wouldn't go near the other chickens - she was low man on the totem pole.
This morning wasn't hard at all - got up, put my gold sweater on, jumped into my polka-dotted boots, picked Diamond up and took her outside with me, opened the coop, filled the feeder, cleaned out and refilled the waterer, locked the coop back up and done.  And the only reason I was done was because they didn't come out of the roost, so I couldn't clean it.  I don't know why I thought they would come right out (too many cartoons I guess), but I'll get it cleaned when I get home.

It's only been one day - but my goodness this was exactly what I planned and thought it would be.