Around here we celebrate the beginning of spring by surrounding ourselves with chicks... ok, so, it's like spring here year round, but work with me...
(apparently Ameraucanas come in Angora)
So, we have lots of new chicks around here, some hatched, and some that came in the mail. I've been hatching Ameraucanas, some laying mixes, some Phoenix, and some bantams, with the odd Marans and duck thrown in to keep things interesting. The Ameraucanas are such a hit, all my birds from last year aside from a couple of roosters have sold quickly, and I'm getting some really fantastic colors along the way, which adds to the appeal.
To that end, we have acquired a new head rooster for our flock, a handsome blue wheaton Ameraucana rooster that we call "Paris" as he is a handsome and vain interloper, who has successfully stolen the lovely girls from Icy.
Of course, we actually retired Icy from fatherhood to keep a good strong gene pool going in that yard, but Paris doesn't know that ;)
As you can see, the girls love him! Speckles spends a lot of time preening him, much to his chagrin. Speckles is one of our hens from last year's October hatch, and my daughter claimed her very early on, so she is staying in our flock.
Right. Where were we? Oh, Chicks!
So, this winter we decided to pick out a few new breeds and phase out our zany (albeit productive) Red Sexlinks. We prefer pretty layers that are not ding-bats, and we love to play with the birds when we feed and collect eggs. So on the top of our list, known for great year round production of eggs, are the Black Australorps. What sweeties! They're just as calm as you could want, and they arrived in January. They get to be a good sized standard bird with a hefty build, clean legs, and iridescent black feathers. Pretty and notoriously productive....those crazy red girls' days here are numbered!
Mine aren't grown yet, so I borrowed this from feathersite, I think the black feet are a nice touch on these cute birds!
Next on the "must have" list, is the Salmon Faverolle. These chicks were adorable, yellow puff balls with feathered legs and puffy cheeks and chins, SO cute. This is a fun and unusual breed where the hen and rooster have vastly different colors. They're known for a good disposition, and are decent layers. Mostly, we thought they were pretty, haha! Being suckers for fluffy cheeks, we thought these would be a fun addition to our flock.
Crazy color difference by gender, right? But we just love the heavy, fluffy chickens, and these have such fun cheeks and beards, they HAD to be on our list.
In the same theme, we chose a rare breed that also has cheeks and beard, but is clean legged, and listed in the endangered category of livestock, the Spangled Russian Orloff.
Now, this name is somewhat of a mis-representation, as the breeds origins are actually quite ancient, from the middle-east. However, the Russian Duke Orloff is the one who brought the birds to Europe and started making them famous in the 18th century. Since that time, the breed was changed a bit from the original, cornish-looking stock, to be a dual purpose bird. More about that n a later blog post, suffice it to say, they succeeded and the birds around today are the result! Decent layers, that double as good meat birds.
These chicks have a proclivity for playing leap-frog, and the poor Faverolles were a bit bowled over by these bouncy and rambunctious peeps that they arrived with! Another one with cheeks and beard, but clean legged, this time, like an Ameraucana.....but there the similarities end! These stand more upright, like a Phoenix or Jungle Fowl, indicative of the ancient origins of the breed.
So these bold colored youngsters are flourishing, apparently exceptionally sturdy and enjoying life! They freak out when you first try to catch them, but love to be cuddled once they've been caught. I think they're going to be good fun once they're grown. For now, I'm tripping over them, trying desperately not to step on them when they rush to my feet when I come in the stall to feed them. The 10 peeps eat more than my horse...seriously. But raising them and perpetuating them could help get them off of the endangered list, so that's ok. At least, that's what I tell myself every time the feed man delivers 350lbs of chicken feed every other week.
Here are the Orloffs and Faverolles with their "packing peanut" buddies that are Jersey Giants:
Last, and kinda least, I got some Bantams. They don't really serve any purpose other than to make me smile, but they're really good at that! I got a mixed bunch of 25, plus some Blue Quail D'Anvers. I'll post more about the ones we decide to keep once they've grown up a bit more, but suffice it to say, they all arrived adorably tiny and have stayed that way. The D'Anvers are the pampered lot, my daughter adores the ones she's had before, so they're totally tame, and actually beg to be cuddled and patted. Yes, we are suckers.
This is a Belgian breed, and they come in loads of cute colors, but when we chose the blue quail, it was because we get a variety of color sets from the pairs. The blue gene causes an interesting color mix of peeps in all the different breeds of chickens. Blue parents produce 50% blue peeps, 25% black peeps, 25% splash peeps. So in our order of blues, we got some blues and some splash, apparently the blacks get pulled aside by the hatchery, and that's fine, I have a black roo already.
Here's a Blue Quail d'Anvers hen (not a great one, she has a very minimal beard):
And here's a Blue Splash d'Anvers hen:
And the Quail D'Anvers (the black ones):
Too cute, right?
Well, these little ones are pretty rewarding as bird-pals go, they are busy layers, so as long as you don't mind breaking half a dozen eggs to make a normal sized breakfast, they do actually have a bit of return on your TLC.
My Lemon Blue Phoenix pair have been giving me some eggs to hatch, and I've got a hand full of peeps already! Here are a couple of them, freshly hatched, with their baby-sitter, a Porcelain D'Uccele bantam peep.
More eggs are in the incubator, but I don't think we'll be doing any more orders for now. Fingers and toes crossed for more successful hatches!
Yesterday's egg count (because it's too early to do today's count!): 20
