Egg on my face

Well, not only did I make an assumption that was wrong, but I've stuck a poor chicken with an inappropriate name! Yesterday I was reading the Juniper Moon Farm blog and Susie wrote that she had purchased a some new hens, one of which was a Cuckoo Maran.......and there was the picture. Uh oh, doesn't look like Frenchie at all. I checked out a few hatchery websites (Cackle Hatchery and Murray McMurray are the best) and discovered that Frenchie is actually a Silver Laced Wyandotte. The reason I removed Frenchie from the chicken pen was because she was being picked on by a mean girl. Guess what? That mean girl is the Cuckoo Maran! All the catalogs talk about how docile the Cuckoo's are, but this one is so mean, she will draw blood if you try to get an egg out of the nest when she's sitting on it. We've had to develop a technique for saving ourselves from daily injury. I recycle our Greek yogurt containers and use those for feed measurement scoops. Whenever I collect eggs, I hold a yogurt container over her head while I search under her! (no chickens are harmed during this exercise, but if I don't do it right, humans are sure to be!)

(the mean girl!)