Welcome home Tami Taylor & Tyra!

It's a cruddy day outside, but we're happy over here at Bexley Chickens because we've finally brought home two new pals for Peggy!

Welcome Tami Taylor (a Welsummer) and Tyra (a Jersey Giant)!

This morning Andrew & I woke up early to drive to Marion & pick them up.  Cathy from Omelet Acres met us (apparently what counts as early for us softened city folk is practically mid-afternoon for Cathy & her husband, Mark!).  They have a lovely farm out there & a bunch of all kinds of breeds of chickens.  You can check out their hens' handy work at the Bexley Co-Op & the Greener Grocer in the North Market -- look for Omelet Acres.

Cathy picked our hens for us (they wisely don't allow strangers back near the coops because we have god-knows-what on our shoes!).  We bought some eggs, too, for good measure because Cathy reminded us that the hens might not lay for a while because of the stress of the move.

They both were very tame & not at all hand shy.  Much cuddlier than Peggy!  We packed them up in recycling bins for the trip home.  Thanks, Bexley Recycling.

I threw down some straw & scratch to make the yard a little more interesting/distracting (per Cathy's suggestion).  Tami Taylor (the pretty Welsummer) seemed like the feistier of the two so I put her in the chicken area first.  I didn't really have a rationale for this - it just seemed right.  Here's Peg & Tami, making their acquaintance:

Just after I snapped this photo there was a tiny, 15 second curfuffle, spurs up.  But Tami seems to have emerged as the top hen & they moved on quickly.  Peggy hid behind my legs for a second and is definitely keeping an eye out for where Tami is in relation to her and the scratch.  She's hugging the rails a little bit, but doesn't seem too stressed out.  She's eating and scratching, so what more can I hope for?  When I added Tyra (the Jersey Giant), it went even smoother.  She just slipped right in.

I'm relieved that this seems like no big deal!  It's certainly 100% easier than when we tried to add Sally to the established pecking order of Peggy & Joan.

Lesson learned: 1+2 is easier than 2+1!

And now, for your moment of zen:

Note @ 10:46pm: This post has been updated to reflect the fact that Tami Taylor is spelled Tami not Tammy.  I know you were all thinking "when will she discover she's made a horrible mistake?"  Someone could've just told me and spared poor Tami nearly 12 hours of embarrassment!