Kittens

May 15th, 2002, was a big event for all of the Bad Chickens. Iota, a Bad Chicken in training, decided to show us exactly how skilled she was at multiplication. She delivered to us five little rats, as we affectionately called them.

For the first couple of weeks, these mini-beastes were not able to walk, feed themselves, or even open their eyes. They were pretty useless little animals though they were exceptional cute. We decided to name them after the five hobbits in the Lord of the Rings novels, that being Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippen:

At six weeks old, the kittens are playing all of the time. They have begun eating solid food about a week before and are in the middle of becoming acquainted with the little box. It is an incessant parade of scampering feet around the Bad Chickens coop, making walking and any other movement difficult. And, to make matters worse, all five of the prospective Bad Chickens love feet and are always under foot. These pictures show the health of these soon to be adopted beasts:

It is not all fun and games for the rats, though. At seven weeks, we were finally able to capture some images of the beasts during some down time. Many of these show just how adorable they can all be, as they all like to sleep in the most relaxed positions. Of course, "pile of cat fur" is a common event during these times:

The day finally came, at eight weeks of age, that we had to find homes for the prospective Bad Chickens. It was just not possible to keep nine furry beasts around the coop; we had to let them go. On July 3rd, the following notice was posted at strategic locations in Vero Beach. It took less than a week to find the best possible homes for these special kitties:

Of course, we did decide to keep Pippen for our own...