The first celebrity egg has been laid!
The honor goes, fittingly, to the first chick I ever hatched. Mayflower is now a beautiful and personable hen residing with Grace and Peter and two other lucky ladies in Dallas.
She precociously popped out the night before her hatch date and has been leading the pack ever since.
As she grew, Mayflower never forgot her early indoor upbringing, and whenever the door was open she would wander in and perch comfortably under the dining room table, bringing her flock of hatchmates with her.
And she was always the first to run up and look hopefully for hand-fed treats. (As an aside - remember my standoffish Tweety from The Path to Pinterest? That’s her in the background, turning up her nose at the others.)
I’ve been tickled by the updates from Grace: this hen has been living her best life in urban luxury, with every chicken accessory from diapers and harnesses to homemade seed dispensers! I love that she went home to someone who loves her just as much as I did (if not more!).
The “founding feather” of Celebrity Chickens, our lovely Mayflower is now and always, “First in hatching, First in laying, First in the hearts of her countrymen.”
Another celebrity chick owner, Kristy, also reached out this past week with an update on two chicks that went home with her at an early age. They were my last two from a gorgeous batch of Easter Eggers (they lay colorful eggs) and blue Sapphire Gems - one of my favorite and most popular breeds of chicken.
Here is what she wrote:
We bought two chicks from you in June (light Sapphire Gem and Easter Egger). I just wanted to let you know that they are doing great and they are now seven weeks old! We love them so much and want to thank you for our cute girls. We have named them Opal (SG) and Ember (EE).
A little bit about Ember:
She is a little flighty right now, but is getting more used to our hands the older she gets. Once she is in your hands she is a very snuggly chicken. We lost an Easter egger earlier this year and we knew we wanted another EE in our little backyard flock. We know she will be beautiful when she is all grown up and we can't wait to see her feathering and beard!
Opal is a little more easily caught than Ember, but from the very beginning she wanted to be as high as she could get, whether that meant your leg or the couch above you. Her coloring is so beautiful and we can't wait to see her gray plumage mixed in with our other mostly red girls.
The two of them can't stand to be apart from each other, and we often see them snuggling and preening each other. They love picking around in the grass when they get to vacation from their bin, and from the first couple of days we had them they were scratching in the pine shavings and trying to forage. When they are old enough, they will join their two older sisters, Scarlet and Hattie, in the coop. We love them so much!
Kristy and Olivia
Isn’t that sweet? They are feathering out so nicely and I love how their names match their plumage, whether the shimmer of a gemstone or the warmth of a glowing coal.
Thank you Kristy and Grace for sharing! The updates that you sent made my day, and to me, they embody the mission of Celebrity Chickens to bring the joy of chickens to all of our backyards.
We may not be able to visit the seven wonders of the world during lockdown, and true, traveling can be inspiring and impart a sense of awe and wonder that feeds our humanity. But if you have a chicken, you have wonder, beauty, majesty, charm, and inspiration in your very backyard — plus the promise of feeding your actual humanity with fresh laid eggs.
And what could be better than that?