Where does the name Gleepy Come From?

Poultry Collage!

But first, a few words from Charlie 2, our Founding Rooster:

Hey, look!
The ol' farmers have been making a few changes around the henhouse. They put up a new fence, cleaned up a little trash, and added a few other things. Anything to help keep us safe and my hens (oh, how I love certain ones so!) able to lay eggs for you!
Speaking of safety, our henhouse needed a new fence because the fox ruined the old one trying to eat us. Or was it a dog? What do I know, I'm only a rooster, and if they are too big for me to spur them, all I know is that they might eat me.

Chickens... Give them a few words and they steal the show.

The Origins of Gleepy the Hen

Quite some time ago, my father was raising chickens. In honor of the Latin species name gallus gallus, he would name all his hens names beginning with G. Some of the nicer hens were named:

Gwendolyn

Gwenivière

Geraldine (supposedly she was not around too much when my father would go out and tend to chores)

Gretchen

Gertrude

Some of the hens, especially Gwendolyn, would follow my father around when he would dig in the garden for potatoes or anywhere else. Gwendolyn would always seem to know where the potatoes were. These hens thought that he was digging up worms and other goodies just for them!

At some point while my father was trying to hatch eggs in a home made incubator, one hen was hatched which would end up being a little slower than the others. My father decided to call her Gleepy.

Here is where you can find more pictures of chickens. Unfortunately, there are no surviving pictures of Gwendolyn.

Anyway...

I liked the sound of the name, so I stuck with it as a nickname. Now the name is part of computer accounts, what folks call me (including my mother occasionally) and other things.

To Learn More

Read a fictional short story about Gleepy the Hen to learn more about the Gleepy mystique.

This page generated from a master file on Sunday, 11 March 2001 by Curtis R. Anderson.