Meet Marla

Marla

        Marla, oh Marla the mysterious chick! February 11, 2009 a box of day old chicks arrived for us from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Matt and I drove down the hill to the post office so excited about the arrival of our new babies. With an order of 25 you got one extra mystery chick. We had ordered Black Stars, Araucanas, Light Brahmas, and Mottled Houdans. We brought the day old chicks home and put them in the half-ton grape picking bin-turned chick brooder that we made in our shed. We kept them warm under a heat lamp and made sure they had food, water and nutrients. We picked the poo off their butts when they needed it and generally spent a lot of time the next few weeks in the shed cooing over the little chicks. We figured out which chicks were which varieties but then there was one chick that was different from the rest. She was much bigger, fluffy and bright yellow. She must be the mystery chick! We looked in our chicken books and on-line trying to guess what breed she was - buff orpington, maybe? We just called her mystery chick for the first few months of her life. No one got names until we were pretty sure they'd stick around for awhile. We gave eight away to a friend; twenty five was too much for us. We didn't know what breed Marla was until she laid her first egg. It was green! Marla was an Araucana. We had three other Araucanas, Hazel, Mabel, and Fern and they were not fluffy and yellow, but more mottled tan, brown, gold - beautiful. After reading more about Araucanas we realized how varied they are; some are even white. They are one of the few breeds that lays green eggs. So we were happy to have another Araucana. It's fun giving away green eggs, sometimes they are more blue in hue - it's like Easter all the time.