It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about the chickens! Be assured they are all well.
Even the “babies” are now as big as Opal and Precious. And not liking that there is snow on the ground. Obviously these pictures were taken a while ago … it’s too cold for ME to go outside right now!
I love the different variations in color we have in our flock. Of course, most are the Rhode Island Reds and Speckled Sussex, but we have a few oddities.
One is this “teenager” hen that started laying … and then promptly went broody. I believe she’s stopped now but I’m not sure if she’s laying.
I was beginning to despair if we’d ever get eggs. Precious doesn’t lay. Opal recently went through a molt and hasn’t produced for a while. We had three “teenage” hens that should be producing but we were still only getting one – maybe two eggs a day. The “babies” hadn’t produced any eggs yet. Until this week. Yesterday Papa found a tiny egg in a spot he doesn’t normally check – and it was frozen solid. We got the chicks in the beginning of June, so I would hope they would start laying. I guess I don’t know though – with the short, cold days perhaps they won’t.
We’re still infants when it comes to knowing about chickens. Case in point? This guy.
Yep, it’s a rooster. I have occasionally wondered given the fact that he was quite a bit larger than the others. Papa looked up some pictures of Brahmas and the females look completely different. So there’s another chicken that won’t be producing for us. We haven’t heard him crow and from what Papa read, Brahmas are supposed to be some of the least-aggressive roosters around. So he’ll stay – at least for now.
In our defense, just a couple of months ago, he didn’t look that much different than the others.
Also, did you know chickens can fly? Apparently higher than we thought. I’d read a blog several months ago where they were having problems with their hens roosting in the trees. We haven’t had them roost, but they did fly up quite a ways into the trees one day when they got spooked.
What’s new in your part of the world?
How exciting that your grandmother was Marit and Norwegian! Did she taught you some Norwegian traditions? I love your chickens. My mother had chickens when I was a child. They were “white Italian”, and not so beautiful colors like yours. Once my brother got 5 eggs from a neighbor for hatching.Only two of them were hens, and three roosters! We kept only one of the roosters, and had him for some time, his name was Johannes 🙂