Amanda is on OB call all weekend, and has been gone since noon. She had a least two laboring patients; I don’t know if any more showed up.

We picked up three pullets today at the Seattle Farm Cooperative warehouse in SODO. The people there (presumably all volunteer coop members) were very helpful. They sell a lot of bulk garden amendments, chicken and other livestock supplies, and seeds. Today they also had chicks and pullets and young roosters. I don’t know who is buying the roosters since they are illegal in the city. We got a brooder kit (plastic bin, chick feeders and waterers, and heat lamp), a couple of types of feed (one for chicks and one for later), wood shavings for bedding, and three young pullets.
Hopefully they are pullets, anyway. If any turn out to be roosters we can bring them back to be “placed” elsewhere, although there are no refunds.

The pullets are probably five weeks old. They were the leftover chicks from a previous sale last month. But I don’t mind not getting younger chicks. They were slightly more expensive (er, $3 more, but twice the price of chicks), but the sexing is more certain. Or at least that’s what they say.

We got three different breeds. I did not pay attention to what they were when we got them and later had to decipher the cryptic notations on the cardboard box they gave us to transport them. We have a Rhode Island Red, a Buff Orpington, and a Black Sex-Link. “Sex-Link” is a totally non-friendly name; they are hybrids between a Rhode Island Red rooster and a Barred Rock hen.
One of the coop members thought she knew me; of course, I had no idea. I’ll remember her now, though.

We set them up in our spare bedroom. It isn’t warm enough outside for the youngsters, but hopefully it will be in a couple of weeks, because the brooder box is a little small for them and will have to be cleaned out every day probably. The cats have not seen them yet.

I believe Amanda was intending to get bantams, but all of these will be full-sized hens, so we will probably need a bigger coop. Well, perhaps we don’t really need one, but I think the chickens may foul up the nesting boxes (yet to be constructed) since the doghouse is on the smallish side for three full-sized hens.
Since we got the chickens, I needed to actually finish the coop. Fortunately after days of heavy rain, today was relatively dry. I did manage to put the door on the run and almost attach the rest of the wire, but the Kai woke up from his nap and did not wish to be outside (“I’m going back in the house!”). Leaving inside the house by himself is unwise (Amanda had left for UW at this point).

The Kai and I just amused ourselves inside. I made a dinner of broccoli and tofu stir-fry. The evening was like any other. Hopefully Amanda will make it back home sometime tonight.