Sparkle and Lula

My apologies that I didn't send out the birth announcement sooner. Being a new hen, final exams for my master's course and a week in the bush made it all quite difficult to get back to you. 

The Birth.

Sadly we didn't get any incubator siblings. Due to all our power difficulties and the requisite failures of trying to do, well, most things in the Congo, we we lucky to get one. Presenting...Sparkle, The Miracle Chick!

We converted our water table into a brooder.

Being an only chick, Sparkle had the unfortunate habit  of peep-screaming at the top of his/hers (still unclear) lungs for days, crying of loneliness. I asked Papa Michel, one of the atelier at the school if he could find Sparkle a friend and the next day a tiny black and yellow chick was delivered to my door in a lightbulb box. Lula (named by the same flamboyant kindergarteners as Sparkle) and Sparkle became the best of friends. They grew up together. Fast. Too fast. 

I had to move them from my classroom where they became free range kindergarteners to my house. My once sweet abode may have smelled like a barn, but better they shit on my tile than on the class reading rug, no? They soon learned to follow me. They crept as close to the running shower as they dared, skittered underfoot while I baked bread in the kitchen and sat on my desk chair beside me (Sparkle) and shoulder (Lula) while I typed. 

We enjoyed our brief cohabitation together but all good things must end. Some carpenters built them a coop. They are honing their scratching skills and I am keeping my eyes out for hawks and genet cats.

And we all lived happily ever after. The Beginning.