A New Chick Shows Up

A while back I noticed a young chick and Buff Orpington hen out in the sheep shed.  It was the only little chick with the mama hen.

I hadn’t seen it since then, however, and was afraid it hadn’t made it.  But then this morning the mama hen finally brought her chick out to get some of the corn I throw out each morning for the chickens.

I was happy to see the little one was still around, and from the looks of things, thriving quite well.

It actually reminds me a lot of Peeper’s chick.  Hmmm, surely this hen didn’t steal Peeper’s chick?!  That’s an interesting thought!

At any rate, it’s a cute little chick, but then, they always are cute!

Mystery Of The Lost Tail Feathers

A mystery developed over the weekend.  One morning Peepers showed up to eat her grain minus her tail feathers and chick.

What happened?

I don’t know if something attacked them, and she lost her tail feathers in the process, not to mention her chick, or just what.

Like I said, it’s a mystery!

Chicken Preening

After a rainstorm a few days ago, I saw this one chicken sitting on the pallet fence, preening her feathers.

She’s one of the younger hens, hatched just this year.

While she’s preening, I’m busy screaming.  Okay, not literally.  But I’m still dealing with the fallout from someone stealing my credit card info, and dealing with someone hacking into my websites.

This is not my week.  Is the calendar wrong and this is Friday the 13th or something?

Chicken Genetics

We started out with three breeds of chickens here:

1. Buff Orpington
2. Polish Silver Laced
3. Sicilian Buttercup

Our chickens free range during the day, so we don’t dictate what rooster breeds what hen. They decide that all for themselves. 
That means that sometimes the genetics produce some interesting results.

Take a rooster that was a cross of Buff Orpington hens. . .

And a Polish Silver Laced Rooster, and you get a rooster that looks close to the original, but still carries some different genes.

Now let him breed with a Sicilian Buttercup hen. . .

And you end up with this handsome fellow. . .

We’ve also ended up with a lot of all white chickens, and other variations like Peepers. . .

And as usual, I’m waiting to see how many of this year’s chicks are going to turn out to be roosters.  It seems to me that there are always more roosters than hens.  What’s with that?  With two adult roosters, I probably have one rooster too many anyway!

But it’s a lot of fun seeing which genetics come home to roost!

New Faces On The Farm

We got back late Tuesday night from our trip to Canada.  I’m trying to catch up on things here at home now, but not doing a very good job at it.  I’ve got a bunch of pictures to sort through, and I do mean a BUNCH.  Richard and I were both taking pictures, and there’s about 900 of them sitting in a couple of files, waiting my attention.  Aye yi yi!

Yesterday morning when I went out to do chores, I noticed some new faces.  Little chick faces.  Peepers has a new chick (what’s with only ONE chick these days?), and another hen has SEVEN new chicks (that’s more like it!).

I took out my camera when I went to do chores this morning to get some baby pics.  Peepers brought her little chick out from under the sheds where she nests.

It doesn’t take little chicks long to imitate their mama and try pecking at grain.

The other mama is a Buff Orpington hen:

The hen on the right is a Sicilian Buttercup, but she doesn’t have any chicks.

I love to watch mama hens with their chicks.  They are soooooo uber protective.  They fluff out their feathers to make themselves look really big and tough.

Once all the chickens have munched up all the scratch grain I’ve thrown out for the morning, Mama Hen takes her chicks out into the pastures to forage for more food.

They’ll come back in when I go out in the evening, cause my chickens just love me sooooooo much they always come running when they see me. 

Okay, okay, so it’s just cupboard love.  But I still enjoy seeing them come flocking towards me!