Chicken update – May 2010

chicken face - what are you looking at
chicken face - what are you looking at
 
What are you looking at?!?
 
 
chickens eating feed

I would have thought by now we wouldn’t have much to show you about the chickens on a weekly basis – but they are still growing!  I just can’t seem to keep up on taking pictures and posting.

A few weeks ago we bought some leg bands to help us identify individuals among the breeds – we have red, blue, and “no bands”.  We lucked out that for those breeds where we have more than 3, half of them are hens – so we can still tell the difference.

Every night, at least once a night, Papa sets up a lawn chair inside the chicken run and plays “perch” … as in he becomes the perch and the chickens sit on him.  His legs, his lap, and sometimes even his shoulders.

leg perch

He’s developed some favorites – birds that come around every time he sits down, and fortunately the VERY friendly ones are hens!  Here are our three sets of hens:

Henrietta – she’s the smallest and lightest colored Buff Orpington. She has also been the friendliest.  She loves to come and “talk” to Dave to tell him about her day.  She is a jabber-mouth!   (That’s “Retta” behind the rooster in the picture.)

Buff Orpington chicken


Blondie – another Buff Orpington hen.  One of the BO’s that we leg-tagged lost theirs, so both Henrietta and Blondie are without tags, but fortunately Blondie is slightly darker than Henrietta so it’s easy to tell them apart.

Babs – a Barred Rock hen.  I think these are still my favorite as far as looks (but then again I picked them!)

Barred Rock hen

Faith, Hope and Charity

Silver-Laced Wyandotte hen

The Silver-Laced Wyandotte hens. They’re named but we haven’t determined who is who yet.  Their feathers are extremely soft.

We’re also pretty sure we have one extra hen. She’s a White Rock like this (except this is a rooster). She’s smaller than the other two and doesn’t have much for a comb or waddle. I’m hoping that one is a hen – that means we’ll have white eggs among our colored ones!

We’ve discovered that the breed we thought might be Dark Cornish includes a couple of different breeds.  The one below has more of a solid brown “stripe” on his feathers.

White Rock rooster
rooster - unknown breed

This one has more brown speckles.  We’re still not completely sure what they are – but they have the most beautiful, iridescent feathers.

rooster - unknown breed

And of course, there’s Ludwig.  I have to include a picture of him because he’s just so gosh darn CUTE!  His “hair” is really getting spiky (hence the name Ludwig – as in Beethoven).  It’s very hard to get a decent picture of him because he rarely stops moving.  He’s been a lot smaller than the rest for quite a while, but just in the last week he’s really shot up in size and has almost surpassed the “runt” dark (Cornish?) that we have.

chicken, White-crested Black Polish - Ludwig

Oh, and the chicken with the attitude at the top?  That’s a Brahma.  There are three roosters – they like to fight among themselves and with others, and they just look M.e.a.n.  We’re not going to be sorry to see them go.

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