Meet The People (And Pets) Of Girlz Best Friend

Let me introduce myself...

Hi, everyone! I hope you had a great weekend and have a great week! I thought that since I've been writing here for almost two weeks it was probably time to introduce myself and all  my menagerie of pets!
My name is Aly and I'm a 22 year old administrative assistant / animal lover from Michigan. My favorite hobbies are reading, listening to music, and cooking. I also like to knit and garden.

I share my life with two dogs, six pet birds, sixteen hens, and five guinea fowl. The dogs names are Hailey and Titan. Hailey is a 4 year old German Shorthaired Pointer whom I have raised from puppyhood. She's a great cuddler and also loves to go outside whenever possible (even in the rain or snow!). Titan is a 3 year old Great Dane who belongs to my sister. She adopted Titan as an 8 month old puppy when he was removed from a neglectful home. He's a big sweetie who loves to play and hates to be separated from my sister for even a moment. I can occasionally coax him to go outside with me to play fetch though or go for a ride in our tiny rowboat. Titan pretty much fills the boat up from side to side and front to back but he loves to be rowed around in it!

I also have two cockatiels and four zebra finches. The cockatiels are both boys, named Jake and Jesse, who are 2 and 1 years old, respectively. I re-homed Jake when he was a year old after his owner couldn't keep him anymore and then bought Jesse when he was a few months old as a companion for Jake. There are two pairs of finches, all of which are a year old. The first pair, Martin and Flynn (along with my other female, Casey) were an impulse buy when I was getting Jesse. I had wanted zebra finches for a long time and couldn't resist the three adorable babies in the Petsmart! I got Eli a few weeks later as a mate for Casey and they are now a happy couple, too.

The hens range in age from 5 to 1 years old and are of all different breeds and types. I have three 5 year old Colombian Rocks, two 5 year old black Australorps, a 2 year old Light Brahma, two 1 year old Black Jersey Giants, a 1 year old Isa Brown, and a 1 year old Buff Orpington. I also have 6 Mixed Breed hens of unknown heritage which range between one and two years old. Two of the Mixed Breeds are silver (similar to a Silver Laced Wyandotte), one of them looks a little bit like a Dominique, and the other three are crested. The smallest of the crested hens looks like a white bantam. One of the others is black-and-white striped and may be part Japanese Bantam and the third is gold laced. I've re-homed all of the hens as adults or younger pullets and usually add a few more birds to my flock every year.

The guineas are all 5 years old with the exception of the youngest Mpumi (nicknamed Mr. J) who will turn a year old in July. I got the oldest male and female (named Malik and Atiya) when they were a few months old. The other male and female (Chaga and Karam) were day old chicks at the time so I kept them in a brooder box in the house for a couple of months.

Mpumi is the only one of my pets who I bred myself. I put a fresh guinea egg under a broody hen (Mrs. B, one of my Colombian Rocks) last summer. Just under a month later I went out to the coop in the morning and found the tiniest, most adorable guinea keet I've ever seen. Unfortunately, Mrs. B turned out to be a somewhat aggressive mother and I had to take Mpumi away and raise him in the house. That's where his nickname came from; I called him Mr. Jumpy because he was always jumping around the house which later became shortened to Mr. J.

So, now you know all about my wonderful (and a little bit crazy) family of pets. If you have any questions feel free to send me an email!

Thanks for reading!