How NOT to Name a Chicken- (Tagging Chickens)

O.k. I'm a softie. I had specific intentions to let the little chicks go without names. They are, after all, livestock and we knew we'd be paring down some of them in the long run. But it started with a little brown faced one we couldn't help but nickname Brownie.

Where's Brownie?

That's it. We'll just name that one. She'll be our special little pet and there'll be 24 that we treat like chickens. Except the other peanut butter faced one. She'll be our little Reeses Pieces. No more. Then another one stuck out from the crowd for her big structure. Big Bertha joined Brownie and Reeses on the short list.

Still there were 22 that needed some form of ID to keep a history of the chicken. This one had to have the butt feathers cut, that one seems more sluggish than the others, this one more spunky, etc... We settled on a method of placing a colored zip tie on each leg. The color combination would ensure that no chicken had more than one tie on each leg, ie. Left: Red; Right: White.

Love those fluffy butts! -Carrie

More Chicken Porn

That sounds like a good combination for Valentines Day. We'll call this one Cupid. And so it followed. Until 20 or so had names that just flowed - like Sunrise and Sunset (orange on one foot and red on the other) and Patti (green on both feet.) Well all was well and good until we got to the end and realized that we weren't really sure that all of them were properly marked. A recount was in order. I placed a box in the bin and started calling off chickens to Will as I put them in the box. We got to the end and fell one short. The last, we found, was under the box holding the rest of the clutch!

My heart leapt! There was this little blob of black fuzz laying on the floor of the chicken's bin. She wasn't moving. What had I done? I took her in my hands and her fragile body lay limp. Her tiny chest moved up and down in a shallow reciprocation. Kristen started to cry and I wanted to also. For ten minutes I held her, uncertain about her future. I watched and waited with bated breath. Time crept. Slowly, the life returned back to her body until she was on her feet. I don't think she would have made it a few more seconds under the weight of her sisters. I had but one name to give this little one who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders - Atlas. We only have room enough for 16 in our coop. No matter what, she's earned a place on our perch. I love a fighter.

Editor's note: There are now several with minor amounts of brown showing up in their face and since we could no longer determine the real Reeses from the imposters, we've since deleted the name from our list. ALSO, as an added bonus, we ran out of names and had to find out why. I'm ashamed to say that after three days of having these girls, we realized we officially have 26! A bonus chicken! We broke out a new color of zip ties and slapped two yellow ones on her. What else could we call her but Sunshine!

Below is a list of the official names. See if you can reason your way through the colors and names. -Jason

Left		Right		aka.
Green		Red		Carol
Red		Green		Holly
Orange		Red		Sunset
Red		Orange		Sunrise
Black		Red		Rose
Red		Black		Cardinal
Red		White		Cupid
White		Red		Valentine
Green		Orange		Brownie
Orange		Green		Bertha
Black		Green		Shamrock
Green		Black		Clover
Green		White		Money
White		Green		Ivy
Black		Orange		Atlas
Orange		Black		Shadow
Orange		White		Tabby
White		Orange		Nema
Black		White		Yin
White		Black		Yang
Red		Red		Flame
Green		Green		Patti
Orange		Orange		Pumpkin
Black		Black		Midnight
White		White		Snow
Yellow		Yellow		Sunshine