Pictures of the chickens! Go ahead and admit it that you’ve been wanting to see some of the 9 million pictures I’ve taken of the chickens. I still can’t get over how fun they are to watch and that leads to me taking more and more pictures. Thank goodness for digital cameras.
Here they are out in the yard – they’ve gotten so big! Definitely wouldn’t fit in a box anymore.
Here’s a close-up of one of the Silkies. They are really unique looking chickens, I’m glad we got a couple.
And here’s one of the crooked beak ones (top of the picture with wings flapping). If you look closely (or click on the picture to make it bigger), you can see how the bottom beak is skewed off to the right. There are two of them but they’re both still doing fine and eating so we’re letting them be for now. They even seem to do okay scooping up ants out in the yard. So no culling for now but they’ll probably be the first on the list for eating.
Here’s one of the Araucana’s looking tough. This one is one of the more dominant in the flock for sure.
And then finally, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was the tiny chicken we got that we now guess is the free “rare and exotic” chick that the hatchery throws in for free. You’d think it would be easy to tell but we only ordered 2 silkies (somewhat rare and exotic) and we got 3 and Elizabeth look like a mini-Aracuana when she arrived. I guess the hatchery is trying to add to the fun by not telling us what kind of extra chicken they’ve thrown in the box. Crazy times!
Because she was so much smaller than the others, Zoe named her right away (much to my chagrin because I was sure she’d be the first to die). Then she looks so different that for awhile, we thought maybe she wasn’t a chicken at all. But now, we think that she’s a Golden Penciled Hamburg and she’s very much alive. She’s smaller even than the Silkies, but she’s fast and doesn’t seem to be at the bottom of the pecking order.
She’s the only chicken who fits through the fencing now but she’s come back every time she’s gotten out. I try not to fret about it.
So there’s your chicken fix!
“they’ll probably be the first on the list for eating”… wow. Do your children know about this?
Hahahah, we’ve talked about it but I’m not sure they fully understand. And trust me, I’m all bluster and talk here trying to psych myself up for it too ;)
I have *so* been missing pictures of chickens!
Have I told you ’bout how my great grandfather (Pat’s dad) used to raise show chickens? Apparently it was quite the thing at the time for the rich and famous to keep fancy chickens as “pets”, and he sold some to the likes of Errol Flynn, and got written up in Life Magazine! You’d get a kick out of the pictures, but I think all my copies are back in NC unfortunately.
Do the fancy chickens lay fancy eggs too?
Show chickens are awesome! I would love to see pictures, that is really something.
The Araucanas lay blue eggs which is kind of fancy. The Silkies lay brown eggs I think but we’ll see. The neat thing about them is that they have black skin and black bones (I hear) which is pretty crazy.
PS what was the final result? did you end up with any roosters?
Embarrassed to say I don’t really know. One of the Silkies is a rooster and I think one of the Araucanas maybe but no cock-a-doodle-doos so my chicken-rookiness is really showing here. No one seems to be bothering anyone else with rooster like behavior though so who knows. Time will tell I guess!
*cock-a-doodle-doooooooo!*
But please, don’t make me sleep in the chicken coop!
Thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou for the chicken pics. Love the neice and nephew pics of course, but doggone those chickens are cute.