We're foster parents!

I have some good news and some more good news!!!

Which news do you want to hear???

Ok, let's start at the top...

Last Saturday I was surfing the local county animal control website.  I'll tell you why I was there later.

And it was so sad.  I was viewing the photos of the animals for adoption.  And I found a chicken in the local county shelter!

I could picture her in my mind...

Poor chicken in a cage, surrounded by barking dogs and cats.

Of course it was Saturday evening, and the shelter was closed on Sunday.  According to the webpage she was there a week already.  Poor bird!  It broke my heart to think of a bird in a cage at the shelter.

So on Monday Randy went visiting the local shelter.

And without further ado - let me introduce our latest resident here at Razzberry Corner!

I think I like the name Penny, but I'm still determining if it fits her.

Penny was someone's house chicken.  She has not yet started laying eggs.  She never was around other chickens.  She does not make normal chicken noises.  Instead, she makes noises in her throat like a person talking jibberish.  It's very cute.

Penny has a lot to learn.  Last night she slept in the coop, her first time in a coop beside the other hens.  This morning she discovered dirt and took her first dirt bath.  She doesn't know to go in the coop at nighttime, so right now, at almost 8pm, she's still outside in the chicken pen while everyone is sleeping on their roosts in the coop.  I'll put her in the coop shortly.  She's very friendly, just like my other birds, and runs right up to me to be picked up.  The other birds pick on her, of course, like chickens do.

Back up a bit.  We signed up to adopt Penny and ended up becoming foster parents for chickens and guineas for our county.  The county came out Tuesday and inspected our farm and approved us.  Penny is a permanent foster chicken here at Razzberry Corner.  In the future when other chickens or guineas are brought into the shelter we told them we'll permanently foster them.

What kind of chicken does she look like?

Recently I mentioned the trees in our enclosed chicken pen, so I thought I'd show a photo of the big pine tree, from inside the pen.  The fence comes right up to the tree so no one can get in or out.

The chickens are all going into their coop in this picture.  Everyone except Penny, who's off somewhere else.  It's bedtime.

And here are the guinea keets inside the guinea keet pen, getting ready for bed, getting their final snack.  You can see the keet door that leads to the chicken pen in the back of the picture.

I'll give you my next good news in my next post!