We have had twenty-five chickens and one rooster. The first chickens we had were from our friends who now live in Maine. They gave us six, but five of them have died since then. The ones we got are named: Sparkle (she was killed by a dog), Star (died of old age), Nightingale (died of old age), Jewel (still alive), Queen Elizabeth (died of old age), and Honey (hit by a car).

Sparkle was Timothy's chicken before they gave them to us and then he gave her to me because he and I are the same age and we are good friends. She was at the top of the pecking order. She would lay unusually elongated eggs because she was a big chicken.	Star was the next highest in the pecking order. She died of very old age on October 18, 2005. She wasn't mine because she was Jonathan's. So when we got her, she was a family chicken.
The next chicken in the pecking order was Nightingale. She died of old age on April 15, 2005. She lived to be pretty old, because we got her in 2002 and she was probably 2 or 3 years old then. She also was Timothy's chicken, so then she was mine after we got them. She was a very nice chicken. Nightingale, Star, and Sparkle were all Barred Rocks.	After Nightingale comes Jewel. She is a Silver Laced Wyandotte. She is just a family chicken. She is probably around 8 years old! Click here for sound clip.
Queen Elizabeth the Araucana came next. Well, not really. She was lower than all the chickens that I have already mentioned, and she was higher than the Rhode Island Reds that we have, but the new Araucana chicks that we got in the summer of 2004, are higher than she was! Doesn't that seem weird? She died from old age and the cold winter on Feb. 7 2005. The young Araucanas are lower than the RI Reds too. Queen Elizabeth (Queeny) was Timothy's chicken, so she was mine. When we first got her she was all pecked up from the other chickens because they had to be together in the same crate, but she grew her feathers back pretty quickly.	After Queeny was Honey, but she was hit by a car pretty early, so she wasn't in the pecking order very long, and I didn't get very good pictures of her. Honey didn't have a name that anyone could remember when we got her, so we decided to name her Honey because of her yellowish-gold color. She was an Araucana and laid green eggs. She was a family chicken.

After the chickens from the Steltzers, we got some Rhode Island Reds from our neighbors. They are supposed to be good layers, and were for a few years, but now that we have had them for almost four years now, their egg production has dwindled. We started out with 6, but two have died since then. None of them are anyone's particular chicken; they are all of ours.

The highest in the pecking order of the RI Reds is Patty. Click here and here for sound clips.	After Patty was Henny. Most of us called her Pighen, though, because she always pushed the other chickens out of the way when we gave them kitchen scraps. She died on June 4, 2006.

Wack was next in the pecking order. In case you haven't guessed yet, we named four of the RI Reds Nick, Nack, Patty, and Wack. The other two we named Henny and Penny. We named this one Wack because when we first got her, she would stand around as if she had just been whacked. She died on February 3, 2005.	After Wack there was a circle of chickens. This is how it went. Nick was higher than Nack, who was higher than Penny, who was higher than Nick. Nick is the biggest of the chickens. She laid the first egg of the RI Reds. She has a spur on one leg even though she's not a rooster!

Nack is one of the nicest chickens we have. Nightingale is the only one that was nicer. Nack always comes running over when I go out to the chicken yard to see if I have anything. When I feed her corn out of my hand, she pecks it gently instead of attacking it as though it were going to get her. Sound clips 1 and 2.

Penny was a light red, almost orange, chicken. She had the lowest voice of the RI Reds. She died on May 11, 2005. Here's a sound clip.

In June of '04, we bought 7 Araucana chicks from the local grain store. They were all supposed to be hens, but after a month or two, one of them was larger than the others and started to crow in the mornings! Now he's a very colorful rooster. It's hard to tell the pecking order of the Araucanas because they are all below the rest of the chickens and get picked on by them a lot, so they don't usually pick on each other.

It's hard to tell, but I think that Goldie is the highest of the Araucanas. She is kind of small and doesn't like to be picked up or petted. We named her Goldie because she is a nice gold color.	After Goldie comes Peepicheep I think. She is kind of like Queeney. She makes the same kind of noise that Queeney did and looks a lot like Queeney.
Gertrude is the best canidate for being next in the pecking order. We named her Gurtrude because when she was little, she had a very small tail like Gertrude McFuzz in Dr. Seuss's book Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories.