Violet, Jewel, and Henrietta

Housekeeping announcement:
Blogger.com has informed users they will no longer support the email notification service effective "sometime" in July.  That means you will no longer receive emails notifying you of a recent post.

Disappointing but a consequence of using a free blog hosting site.  If it helps, I tend to post on Mondays and/or Wednesdays.

New Girls Arrive
The Isa Brown babies (3-month olds) arrived this past Saturday.

They're very shy and skittish so I make sure I go into their area of the coop and just talk to them for a few minutes every day when I'm not feeding and opening/closing coop doors.  

The big girls were happy to announce their displeasure in having lost access to half of the coop. For some unknown reason they prefer the nesting boxes in the area the little girls are in.

 Goldie kept pecking the screened area of the door separating the two portions of the coop (this serves as an area for the two groups to see, hear, and smell each other).  Joannie B. had done the same thing the day before.  At this point the big girls seem to have resigned themselves to the loss of the second bedroom of their coop condo.

The current problem is the little girls don't seem to be going into the porch very often where they can get fresh air and sunshine.

  

These were taken the first couple of days after arrival.  I just happened to read an article today about the importance of sunshine for chickens.  So I'm left with the dilemma of whether to shoo the girls out into the porch and cause them anxiety or rely on them venturing out on their own.  What to do...

As for names, this is what I've selected:  Violet -- in memory of my blog buddy Louise's little girl, Jewel -- thanks to a suggestion by friend Bev that goes along with my female singer theme, and Henrietta -- because it popped into my head and I like it.

When the little girls are grouped together I'm beginning to be able to tell the difference based on coloring, but when separated all bets are off.  I'm working on it.