Ameraucanas

Here begins the first of my flock breed entries:
Ameraucanas

The most fun and distinctive thing about Ameraucanas, besides the fluffy cheeks, is the fact that they lay turquoise to blue eggs! I have had some of this breed since I was a little kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old (1984-5), and got one at a county fair from one of the founders of the recognized breed. Not only was I mesmerized by the lovely blue/green egg color, but she had the sweetest personality! That hen cost me several weeks of egg money, but I was a little girl in love, and considered it well spent. She'd talk to me, and was always happy to be patted or picked up to get a chin rub. These are not big heavy birds, they're a sort of medium build, typey layer, and they carry their tails more out than up. They also tend to be quite chatty, and they are staunchly seasonal layers, so even when you use a lamp to add daylight hours to your laying house, if the weather is cold, you will not get very many eggs from these girls until their internal calendar says it's getting close to spring again. None the less, my mother loved her, too, and made sure that our flock always had one or two of these 'bearded ladies'.

Here is the American Poultry Assn. Standards for the breed, which was Recognized in 1984:
comb: pea
beak: curved
face: nearly hidden by muffs <--- that's cheek fluff!
eyes: expressive, wattles: small, preferably absent, ears: small
muffs and beard: full, well rounded, medium length
legs and toes: medium length, 4 toes

These birds have a broadly set, medium length tail, sitting at a 40(hens) to 45(cocks) degree angle. They have a prominent breast, medium length back, and full but trim lined body with fluff well tucked.
Not listed in the standard on the ABC web site, but certainly an additional attribute important to breeders are the slate colored legs.

Recognized colors are White, Black, Wheaten, Blue, Blue Wheaten, Silver, Buff, Brown Red.

This is a Buff hen, although she is true to type,
she has some dark feather markings that would
disqualify her in show.

So, I love a pretty, multicolored flock, and Ameraucanas provide me with all sorts of fun color combinations! I have the above hen's sister, a Buff hen who is a proper solid buff color, and when crossed with a Blue Wheaten rooster like this:

I got the most adorable offspring, she's buff with blue on her hackle feathers and tail tips, and has a powder blue under coat of down under the crisp buff feathers. We call her Alice:

While this girl is not a showable color, she is a pure Ameraucana, with her pea comb, slate legs, fluffy muff and beard, full chested typey body. I am hoping to breed some more like her this year, assuming she has good egg color. She's not quite ready to lay yet, but as spring approaches, I'll be watching for her blue eggs!

I have a darling Blue rooster that I bought as a peep last year, and he's lovely, and friendly, my favorite combination in chickens ;) Blue Beard is now king of the Ameraucana coop for the time being, since we retired Icy now that his offspring that we kept are mature.

Blue Beard, our latest Head Boy in the Ameraucana yard,
as handsome as he is sweet!

I have a Blue hen, and a Black hen, as well as my buffs and white, so we'll see what pretty colored peeps we end up with this year. I don't breed for show quality in my pure Ameraucans, I breed for blue/turquoise egg color, and a sweet personality, which I think are the most important things for most families keeping a few hens in the yard. A mix of egg colors is great fun, and a friendly bird that you can easily handle every day makes henkeeping a fun hobby. Keeping ordinary, cross-bred Easter Eggers out of my gene pool also helps me keep a consistent body type, and consistent egg color in each generation of my flock. Wait, what are Easter Eggers? Well, I'll get back to that in just a bit, first I'd like to show off some more of my sweet Ameraucanas!

Cheeky, a White girl who, sadly, ended up getting a faint scattering
of dark flecks on her hackles, wing tips, and tail,
but she has the fluffiest cheeks around ;)

Blue Ameraucan hen, she has nice lacing, and my daughters
may even show her this year.

This is our Black hen, Miss Trouble, who has been serving time
for being caught busting eggs. She promised me she has reformed
so we will be putting her in with Blue Beard next week, on parole,
pending good behavior...

For the full gallery of our Ameraucana flock, take a look at the farm's FB page: Cygnet Hollow Farm.

So, back to the Easter Egger comment.... Sadly, between being a new breed to North America, and having hatcheries incorrectly describing their stock, there has been great debate as to how you know if this cute chicken that lays colorful eggs is, in fact, an Ameraucana, an Araucana, or an Easter Egger. Some hatcheries use these names interchangeably, which makes every Ameraucana, and Araucana breeder in the nation twitch uncontrollably! The original birds with the blue egg tint gene were imported from South America in the 1920's, and had a HUGE variety of visible traits, one of which is wide, sweeping, ear tufts, that stick out like the brim of the flying nun's hat! But, not only did not all of the originals have this trait, it has a recessive fail in  the gene that causes some chicks not to have the ear tufts. When you breed tufted to tufted, you get a split of half tufted, a quarter will have no tufts, and a quarter will die at the point of hatching. Japanese bantams have a similar killer recessive gene connected to their squat leg stance... The Araucanas also have no tail, another recessive trait, called "rumpless".
Anyway, the short version of this story (too late, I know) is that a portion of the original birds also were bred to have beards and muffs, and normal tails. These developed into what is now called Ameraucanas. However, along the way, breeders discovered that often, the blue egg laying gene is fairly dominant, and you can produce hens that lay colorful eggs from cross breeding with other chickens. Those birds, should rightfully be called Easter Eggers.

Some people like to, incorrectly, refer to any Ameraucana who does not meet the color standards, as an Easter Egger. However, that is both illogical, and untrue, verified to me by an officer in the Ameraucana Breeders Club many years ago. Any time you breed a purebred animal to another purebred animal of the same species and breed, regardless of color, that resulting offspring is still purebred. It may be some crazy, un-official color, but it's genes are still purebred.

Because it has been bothering me that so many have it confused, no thanks to the hatcheries who use any or all of the three names to sell their obviously cross-bred stock, I have made a handy-dandy exclusivity chart to illustrate how to tell your birds apart from the other blue egg layers out there....

All three have the Blue/Turquoise egg tint, EE's also have other colors
and you can see what traits are shared by each, and where they differ.

I came across this little nugget from the Araucana Breeders page, and it is the same thing that applies to every breed of chicken, regarding purebred and color mixes:
Even buying from standard colors, if there are other genes present then you may find you have some off colored Araucana's as well but they're still Araucana's. I don't have an issue with buying an Araucana from a "project" and that's what any other color than standard is pretty much. Until it's approved by the APA, every color (variety) other than the ones listed as standard for the breed can still be shown AOV.

The bottom line is that all of these birds came from mixed stock, so educate yourself before you go shopping for an Ameraucana.

Today's Egg Count: We got a lovely blue egg from one of our 3 buff hens, today. She spends most of the summer being cranky and broody, so I figure she's getting her laying done early, so she can concentrate on trying to bite me when the weather is warmer... it did come in handy last summer when nasty storms knocked our electricity out for days, and I'd had eggs in the incubator for about a week. She and Prissy saved the day, consenting to sit on the half-baked eggs.
We only got one egg from our Australorps, which is highly unusual, and we got 3 from the Barred girls, 3 from one mixed yard, 2 from the Blue Birchen Marans, and 4 from the Russian Orloff and Salmon Faverolles yard, which also has a couple of Cochins and a Wyandotte. I forgot to check the Phoenix, oops, better run out and do that! 

A new year, and new farm priorities!

Lots of catching up to do, I kind of dropped the blog thing when I started putting more on my farm Facebook page. However, I finally have a real computer set up with internet access where I can write properly again, so I'd like to get caught up on some information that has been requested of me.

First off, I'd like to update with grown chicken pictures from my breeding program, and make a detailed post about each of the breeds that I currently have here. My goal is one breed each day...haha... we'll see.

Next, I'd like to post pics and information regarding recipe redaction, and period ingredients, as discussed in the class that I taught at Atlantian University this fall. Mistress Blythe asked me to teach it again, so I'd like to have a few links that I can hand out with explanations and sources, and let students refer back to the blog for further information and to ask follow up questions.

Related to that, I'll get caught up with my chicken history. I'd like to do another display of period chickens at Ruby Joust this year. Last year's display was pretty darned popular, with people straggling in from all over site to say "wow, is that a REAL chicken?" I'd like to expand this year's display to include more medieval agriculture. No cows, or pigs, maybe a goat or sheep, though, and definitely some grain samples.

Which leads me to the next thing, fiber.
Yes, this is now a fiber farm, too. I went to buy an Old English Southdown Babydoll sheep, and also ended up with a Rambouillet ram, and 4 alpacas that I rescued from a struggling farm. Holy crash-course in camelid-care, Batman! Fortunately, I have a nearby friend who does the whole alpaca-thing and she rushed out to help me figure out what I needed to do with the skinny creatures I brought home. If she has a blog, I'll get it linked in, she's truly a kind soul, incredibly artistic, and she was diplomatic enough not to tell me I was insane for just randomly deciding to keep alpacas. Instead, she has been an invaluable mentor and the person I can call or message at any hour to say "my furry creature is doing "x" ..is that normal?!" 

So, I've stepped up what was an occasional hobby, and now do fibery things daily to help pay for the flock. I'll be posting about that sort of thing as well.

Last, but certainly not least, I'd like to end this post with the sad note that our beloved Mr.Fluffy Pants has passed away. We have experienced some very bitter cold weather this past week, but he was already showing signs of slowing down. Most notably, his most recent molt did not go well, and he didn't regrow glossy feathers, or good colors, despite being a good weight and free ranging with tidbits of treat food. He was obviously slowing down. None of the other roosters dared to pick on him, but only the youngest and greenest got chased at all in recent months, and he hadn't pecked my husband or kids in a very long time. He had an incredibly engaging personality, often the first chicken that guests would see, because he was such a busybody, and loved to be held and loved on. He was my buddy, and the yard is too quiet without him. He will be missed.

Spring has Sprung!

Spring is the season of new life!
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

Getting back in the swing...

Ok, it's really been ages this time.
Late July I ran off to a huge medieval event in Pennsylvania to peddle my wares, and had to send the kids off for their first day of school the day after my triumphant return.
A week and a day later, we had a 5.9 earthquake, the epicenter of which was all of 7 or 8 miles from our farm. Our 125 yr old farm house did not fare well at all.
The animals' reactions to the quake were pretty dramatic, including the hens all squawking for a good long while after the quake was over, and getting upset over every aftershock, the dogs were cowering in corners, the horses leaning on each other, rump to rump, out in the pasture... I will admit that it was pretty frightening, never having been through an earthquake before. Now, after 70-something aftershocks, we feel like old hands, guessing what the Richter scale rating will be for each one we feel and hear. The animals have adjusted as well, with just a few "bagok!"s from the chickens, and the horses don't even stop grazing anymore.


Unfortunately, our chimney separated from the house, and our landlord drug his heels on getting it fixed. An early cold snap convinced us that seeing daylight through the walls was a rather inefficient way to pass the winter, so we found a bigger, better farm for less, and moved about 8 miles away.


Our flocks are much happier now. Our horses think they are in equine heaven with acres and acres of lovely fields. So, finally we can get back into the swing of normal farm life...well...not that things are every particularly normal where our menagerie is concerned, but you get the idea!


So, I will start up again with various updates and random information regarding our flock. Mr.Fluffy-Pants is still king of the yard, lovin' the new diggs. The hubby has been building like a mad-man, trying to get the re-arranged flocks sorted out into breed-specific yards. The geese are chasing people, just for shits and giggles. There are chicks...well...kind of *everywhere*.... The usual mayhem. I couldn't be more content :)

Long-time-no-post Farm Updates

Yes, it has been just this side of forever since I have posted, but the reality is that spring/summer is super busy on a farm, and computer time just hasn't been happening.

So, we are up to about 18-21 eggs/day now, which is lovely. The girls are doin' me proud!

We have also been busy with peeps. Remember that Prissy was setting on eggs? Well, 4 hatched out on Memorial Day, and she promptly lost interest in the whole mom thing, so we had to take the peeps away so she couldn't keep stepping on them! Then I let Rosaline (my hubby's favorite Americauna) have a pile of eggs to nurture, since she was also annoyingly broody. Unfortunately, she apparently does not pass "egg-rearing 101" because not a single one hatched, and I was left with a stinky pen to clean up.

Not to be deterred, I purchased a used incubator from a neighbor, and we hatched out 9 babies. Seven of these are pure Americauna and they are all adorable. I helped them all bust out of their shells, and they are quite sure I am their mommy. Just like the children's book, "Are You My Mommy?" these little ones hear my voice and start calling to me, and if they were loose I am positive they would be crowded around my feet all day. Several of them have taken to jumping into my hand anytime I reach my hand their way. So of course they get snuggled, and played with. My kids are thrilled about the constant flow of peeps these days and spend a fair amount of time with a chick or two in their laps. This farm life is a real hardship, I tell ya...

And in news related to a previous post... Sir Robin may need a new name. We may have to re-dub him Peter. My neighbor has a very large, very tidy vegetable garden, and Robin got caught eating ripe tomatoes off the vine! Which of course started me thinking of Mr. McGregor's vendetta against poor little Peter Rabbit. So, my neighbor, whose name I can never remember, is now being referred to here as Mr. McGregor, and Robin is in time-out in an apartment, lest he cause me further embarrassment.

We have a new batch of peeps ready to hatch in a little over a week. Hopefully we will have at least 50% of these hatch, I have hopes, since we have a better command of the temp control now that we've had some practice with this incubator.

Check out the cute fluffy cheeks! I will take some more updated pics of these little cuties later today, they're ready to graduate from my bathtub to the pen outside. They are a couple weeks old now, but this pic is from when they were just a day old.

Historic Chicken Breeds

Right, so I thought I'd share some of the interesting information I've dug up recently on chicken breeds and just where they came from. Many of these pics are borrowed from www.feathersite.com which is a great resource on chicken information.

All domestic chickens are descended from the Asian Red Junglefowl. It's scientific classification is Gallus gallus, and it has been genetically proven as the original species in the Gallus genus. Gotta love modern science backing up what breeders had been trying to prove for centuries. Now, in all fairness, the Grey Junglefowl was in an overlapping territory in the Indian Peninsula at the same time in history, and many modern breeds carry that genetic mix as well, however the first artwork and records from a couple thousand years ago indicate that it was the Reds that were originally kept domestically in Asia for both meat and eggs. Chicken breeding, you will see, has many Asian roots, and some of the most popular variations and specialized breeds started over there. Notice how this wild Junglefowl looks like a cross between Chanticleer and a pheasant! For whatever reason, this original Asian bird had tail feathers that didn't molt out, but got long and dangly. The hens have almost no waddle or comb.

Domesticated fowl from Asia and India began being imported to Greece by 500BC, according to Wiki's article. Chickens are, by nature, quite loyal to whoever feeds them, and wherever the good shelter is, so they would have been an easy animal for small crofters to keep.

Today, the Red Junglefowl is a closely watched breed, having nearly gone extinct, but they really are best left in the wild, as they do not domesticate well! A single person can train them to accept food from them, and they will get used to their presence, but strangers put them in a total panic. It does beg the question of who was patient and foresighted enough to breed generations of these birds to breed out the "crazy-wild-thing" attitude? Probably some ancient Asian farmer befriended some, or raised peeps he stole from a hen, and voila! Fried chicken was born!

Zoos have had many failed attempts at displaying Junglefowl because they are just SO flighty and wild. Recently the originals have been deliberately crossed with modern bantams to get a friendlier bird that still looks the same. Now, the closest breeds to the originals (in appearance) that are commonly found today are the Phoenix, and the Yokohama.

Here is a modern domesticated Red Jungleflowl, this picture was taken of one in Laos. You can be sure this is a hybridized bird, however, there is a lot of resemblance, dark legs, long tail feathers, distinct coloration.

Here is a modern Silver Phoenix hen. This one is mine, her name is Wild Thing. Body shape and patterning is the same as the Junglefowl of old, merely a more pale color set.

 Here is a Silver Phoenix cockerel, check out the fancy tail! The gene for the non-shedding tail feathers can be deliberately perpetuated, obviously.

And then we have the Japanese Yokohama chickens. There is not a Yokohama breed in Japan, that was simply the name the American breeder gave his line of birds that had been shipped to him from the port of Yokohama, Japan. These birds have the pea-comb, rather than the more game-cock style comb. This boy is the Blue and Red variety. Grey chest and underfeathers, gold hackles and red saddle.

So, that leads me up to some recent acquisitions, my pair of Blue and Red Phoenix/Yokohama crossed birds. They do have the pea-combs, rather than the tall comb on the original reds, but their color is lovely!

They are relatively easy to handle, and have a lot of the lanky body type of the original Junglefowl and hold their tails the same way. They also have dark legs, gold hackles, and a red saddle. The female looks just like Wild Thing did as a pullet but with gold in substitute of her silver.

The Asians have had a love of showing off their birds for thousands of years, and have been breeding for specific attributes since the first Junglefowl was kept in a cage. Then at some point, someone got a genetic mutation where the binding between the hairs on the feather shaft no longer made a solid feather.
And the Silkie chicken was created!

Marco Polo described the very unusual Asian chicken in 1298 as having "hair like a cat, and black skin"...not that you can SEE the skin on this bird!

You can actually get spontaneous Silkie feathering on just about any breed of bantam if you do too much straight line breeding (deliberate inbreeding for a specific trait). Weird, huh? Well, the Silkies left their genetics behind when cross bred throughout Europe in the middle ages for small, cute, and easy to handle chickens. In colonial times, it was considered a status symbol to have Silkies loose in your yard as it implied you could afford to have expensive, and purely ornamental imported birds. Silkies are passable seasonal layers, but their best trait if you are a breeder is that they are very broody in general, and will happily sit on, and hatch out eggs belonging to any sort of bird. They are known for being very tame, and are usually quite happy to be held or sit in your lap for hours on end.

These cute powder-puff chickens come in many colors, primarily hues in the black to white range, as well as buff. A few clever folks have bred Partridge colored silkies (brown and gold mottled) and a few other varieties, but the vast majority are white, silver, blue, splash (grey with darker mottling), black, and buff.

Here is a silver splash baby:

I have decided to name that one Lint. She has siblings I have been calling Pouf and Fluff, but perhaps better names will surface for them.

Next time on Historical Chicken Breeds will be the Marans, and the d'Anvers (both French breeds).

I haven't done an egg count yet for today, but yesterday was 7 (3 of which were blue, my young Americaunas are getting more consistent, yay!), and the day before that was 12.

Today's Egg Count: A Baker's Dozen

I was a little surprised today that despite the dreary 50 degree high and drizzle, the girls gave me 13 eggs!

The brown ones with the white speckles are from the Barred Rock hens, the blue one is from my older Americauna, the small cream colored one is from my Phoenix hen, and the other two pale ones are possibly from my Silver Laced Wyandotte and a young Americauna. The regular brown ones are from the Red Sexlink hens, who are fabulous producers, I'm very proud of those little ladies!

To be fair, the Partridge Rock hen tried to keep 4 of them. She is possibly the most broody hen I've ever had. She has claimed one of the laying boxes, and sits in it all day, except if she gets up to eat or drink, and another hen lays in "her" box, then she plops herself down and claims it for her own the moment she gets back in. I really need a name for her, any suggestions would be welcome. Isn't she lovely?

She's a pretty girl, with beautifully detailed, buttery soft feathers, but she makes the most evil squawk when you approach HER box! So far, she doesn't peck when you take her eggs. I shouldn't feel guilty taking her eggs, but when a hen is so determined to be a momma, I admit that I am always tempted to just let her keep them. I know, I'm a sucker. I believe I've mentioned that before.

The current plan is to collect some Americauna eggs and put them in a nice fluffy nest in one of our chicken apartments for her to sit on. She can be my auto-temp, auto-turning incubator since she's obviously not picky about just whose eggs they are. I am tempted to confine a couple of my banty pairs later this summer and try the same routine if it works. If she wants the job so badly, who am I to deny her? As long as we don't end up with some freaky chicken version of that Rebecca deMournay movie... Once they hatch and survive a week or so, they're mine, tough noogies, momma.

My exciting news is that tomorrow morning there is a chicken swap near my house, which I will certainly be attending, and after I go by there to see what's available, I'll be heading out to Amelia to buy my first pair of Maran chickens! These are Blue Birchin Marans, and they lay super dark brown/reddish eggs, like almost milk chocolate color. I'm excited to add to the color variety in my egg boxes, and I'd love to perpetuate some of these lovelies since they're fairly uncommon. The guy also has Lavender Orpingtons, and some Black Americaunas! I can't wait to see this farm, it sounds like they've got some fabulous chickens, unusual breeds, and the Americaunas I got from him last year are all thriving, which is a good sign!

Little Mr. Fluffy Pants

This is sure to be the first of many tales of Mr. Fluffy Pants' exploits. He is one of the leading characters on our farm, despite being one of the smallest ones.

Mr. Fluffy Pants is a Silver Laced Cochin Bantam with heavily feathered legs and feet. A fairly snazzy little fella, he has many of the attributes of your typical "short man" and he is as bold as the Chihuahua that stands up to the Great Dane, and as brainless. He is, however, exceptionally loyal to me. He is firmly convinced that I am the love of his life, and that I must surely return this affection. No chore can possibly be done on this farm without his supervision, and he expects his comments to be respected, and regular attention and treats to be awarded. He keeps up a non-stop stream of chattering bok-bok-boking when being my shadow, and gets jealous and butts in when I'm patting the barn kitties.

I should mention that his first object of amorous attention was a pretty little mallard duck... He was quite sure that species differences could be overcome by true love. The duck, however, declared that she'd never been so insulted in her life, and proceeded to begin a daily exercise in futility, much like Pepi LePeu and the kitty he loved. The duck quacks in his face, occasionally emphasizing a point in her diatribe with a jab in his chest with her beak. I will do my best to get a video of this, the duck still gives him hell every time he is near her pen, it really is like watching a cartoon, you can literally understand her telling him off, while he stands there looking nonplussed.

So, now that he can no longer be with the duck of his dreams, he has taken to following me all over the farm. He follows my husband too, but is fairly likely to peck him when offered attention, hubby ignores that and picks him up to pat his soft feathers anyway. Clearly he senses who his main competition is. I admit, I am moved by this little rooster's obvious displays of adoration, I mean, what girl wouldn't be?? When I go to the studio over the garage to work on my computer, he likes to stand outside the window and crow to me, over, and over, and over... no joke, he often serenades me for 10 minutes, longer if he can actually see me through the window.

The other night, the high winds blew the studio door open and early in the morning Mr. Fluffy Pants decided to investigate what was up there, probably looking for me. My husband came up to start work for the morning and found the little twerp making himself at home upstairs, and indignant to be evicted. Perhaps he was planning to start writing his own blog. It wouldn't surprise me.

This little guy is the lone bantam in a yard full of big beefy roos, he is less than half the height of most of the other boys, yet he has them buffaloed. Clearly, size doesn't matter after all. Or so he keeps telling me. He chased Sir Lancelot all the way across the barnyard this afternoon, and I was reminded that he is a fast little bugger! Jumped right through the fence like a steeplechaser, fast and clean, no wasted air time. Lancelot was looking more like Robin just then.

Today's egg count: only 6, but considering that yesterday we got 15 I am not surprised. Many of my layers are in their first year of laying, so they won't produce an egg every day for a few more months.

The last several days before that have been in the 7-9 range....anyone need some eggs? Time to post on Craig's List I think! I've got 7 dozen here from the last 10 days. That's a lot of omelets.

Peeps

Fair warning, this is a bit longer than my usual post!

I remember how excited I used to be when the Sears Christmas catalog arrived, how I would get a marker and circle all the zillions of toys that I had not a prayer of getting, but had to put on my list anyway. It was the mail highlight of my year, until I was about 8 or 9, and the Murray McMurray catalog started coming! I would sit and pour over the pages of that colorful publication for hours, and circled nearly every listing in hopes of one day ordering peeps.

For those unfamiliar with the way hatcheries work, you can order on the phone or online, and they line up eggs in incubators (the big hatcheries already know how many they'll hatch out of every breed for each week) and as soon as the chicks hatch, they are put in a special shipping box and put in the mail.

Yes. The Mail, as in USPS.

As far as I know, USPS is still the only carrier willing to transport live creatures like peeps and honey bees. I have heard horror stories of the 2 being in a mail truck wreck, so I don't really blame FedEx and UPS for drawing the line. They get sent via an express service that is faster than Priority, but not like the express next-day service you can buy either. Peeps hatch having just finished absorbing the proteins in the egg, from which they have about 3 days worth of survival without additional food or water, assuming they are kept in an ideal temperature. 

I know there were many times that my mother's loose barn hens put this to the test by hatching out chicks in the hayloft. They sometimes were in such a hidden nook, that it was a couple days before we realized we were hearing peeping from *somewhere*. When we finally moved enough tack trunks and hay bales to find them, we always put momma hen and her babies in a horse water bucket, and lowered it down carefully so that they could forage in the barnyard without having to make a 15 foot leap down first. Finding pancake-peeps in the aisle was not my favorite thing, and yes, it did happen now and then when we didn't hear them before they started exploring the hayloft.

The biggest difference in what mom's hens did, and what the hatcheries do, is temperature. Mail trucks are not climate controlled, and in the summer they get VERY hot. Likewise, in the spring and fall (hatcheries don't ship after September or before March usually) the trucks can get pretty darned chilly. Then there's all the waiting around in sorting facilities and post offices. I cannot tell you how many people I've heard say that most of the peeps were dead on arrival because it was summer, and the postal clerk felt sorry for them being in the hot trucks so they put them by the air conditioning.

This just goes to show you how well the average mail clerk can read. The shipping boxes all have temperature warnings printed on them. Big, bold, bright colored lettering...

Heat they handle pretty well, cold, not at all! So, hot weather travel means they need to arrive within 2 days and get water right away, with some honey added to help pep them up from the draining heat. Cold travel means all the smaller ones will die before 2 or 3 days are over, they simply can't handle being at less than 65 degrees for more than a few hours without losing too much body heat.

So, back to when I was a kid, and ignorant of the details. All I knew is that I had about $100 saved up of egg money, and I had a McMurray catalog *you have to envision me rubbing my hands with greedy excitement here*

I remember my first peep order was a total of $72, which was HUGE to me then. I got about half laying breeds, and about half bantams, just for fun. Of the 50 chicks I ordered (the minimum that McMurray will ship, so they stay warm together in transit) there were one of this, 2 of those, one of that... I'm sure the unfortunate employee who had to fill my order got their exercise running all over the hatchery for the 20-something breeds I wanted! And as I have found is common with McMurray, they tossed in several extras, probably because they could tell it was a child's order, from the dreadful handwriting on the order form (yes, as in, mail in, this was in the 1980's, the dark-ages-before-internet).

The best part of getting peeps in the mail is the phone call from the PO, it is usually tough to hear the postal clerk over the raucous peeping, but the background noise certainly gives away the reason they're calling! Of the 56 or so they shipped I believe every single one of them survived, and made it to adulthood, much to my father's dismay. I am positive he was hoping a certain amount of attrition would keep him from having to build more chicken yards!

These peeps grew up spoiled, constantly handled, and healthy despite all my annoying attention. Of that first batch we had several that ended up living more than 10 years, which is rare, and all the fancy ones were lovely examples of their breed. I recall only one chicken who was a little odd. Her name was Mrs Buffy. She was a Buff Bramah Bantam, and she both laid eggs, and crowed....... a very gender confused chicken. That was the only one that mom would raise an eyebrow to and grumble about inbreeding.

I perpetuated my own peeps for a while after that, using an incubator from my Aunt's classroom. I only did a handful a year so my dad wouldn't run away from home, since we were up to about 100 chickens at this point! I feel I should mention that nearly half were actually just the loose barn chickens of random cross breeding.

Well, I just HAD to do another McMurray order after meeting the most huge and handsome rooster I'd ever seen in my life, at Chatsworth house in Devonshire. This enormous buff rooster was taller than my knees, and was wandering loose with a few friends in the fancy manicured gardens of the Duke of Devonshire's abode. I offered him the crust of my awful sandwich (you have to go to england to see how such simple foods can manage to be inedible, yet cost a fortune) and he ignored that and stole the whole rest of my sandwich out of my other hand! I was in love.

Upon returning home, I grabbed my McMurray catalog and decided he was a Buff Cochin. So I had to order another 50 peeps just to get this guy! He really was just THAT cool. 4 ducks and 40-something chicks later, I had my boy! Easily twice the size of the other peeps, the puffy beige peep was immediately king of the coop. Sadly, 6 or 8 of this batch was DOA.

This 1993ish order was not quite up to the quality of the ones from 7 or so years before. They didn't live as long, their feather patterns weren't quite as text-book perfect, and they weren't as easily tamed. Signs of inbreeding.

It was about 12 years later that I did another order from McMurray.

To start with, my order of 50 peeps, 8 ducks, 4 geese, was up to a staggering $240, and upon arrival, one third of the order was DOA. In June. I don't know what the mail people did to that box, but another third was dead before 24hrs had gone by. I was devastated. All those tiny dead bodies was a heart-breaking thing to see, and I stayed up all night doctoring the survivors, dosing them hourly with warm water and honey. The people at the hatchery were very nice about it and said they'd send me replacements as soon as they were ready, but we were going on vacation, and I just couldn't have brand new peeps for a house-sitter to deal with. So, my handful of chickens didn't have any more company for a year.

The replacement order I got the next year was nearly as bad. Almost half of those died, either on arrival or shortly thereafter, despite my having them go to the city post office, rather than the local one. I had figured one less day in transit would make the difference. Apparently not.

At this point, I had already had several of my McMurray chickens die of unknown causes. There were ones still at my mom's farm that outlived the new ones I'd ordered! I became rather upset with the new McMurray chickens, many of which were flighty, unmanagable hens who loved to eat eachother's eggs. Very few had decent feather patterns, and I had 3 die of eggbinding in their first laying season. That is pretty unusual.

So I googled Hatcheries, and came up with Cackle Hatchery. Tons of fun breeds, 4-H specials, and they'll ship a minimum of 25 peeps. Near enough to have safe shipping time, but they didn't send to VA because of a test that VA requires that no other state asks for. Figures. Fortunately, they were happy to ship to the nearest WVA post office! Score!

I am pleased to say that only one peep was DOA from Cackle. It was a bantam, and had been trampled by the big cochin peeps in it's section of the box. The post master at the WVA office was happy to hold them a couple hours while I drove out to get them, and he even kept them in a warm place. The chicks nearly all grew up to adulthood. Good thing too, since by this time, many of my McMurray hens had bitten the dust. I still have a good number of the Cackle chickens we got, although the winter before this one we lost a huge part of our flock to the horrible winter blizzards, and the attack-goat (again, a tale for another day).

I have recently learned that the McMurray hatchery had to put down the majority of it's breeding flock just after I did my orders, due to an avian flu breakout. I can't help but think that those chickens had been inbred to the point that they were probably susceptible to nearly every avian ailment out there. The quality just didn't compare to the birds of a decade before.

For now, I will continue to try and acquire my chickens locally. I have recently found a web forum for VA chicken fanatics, and craigs list has been pretty great for finding local peeps as well. I know that Tractor Supply Co. gets its' peeps from MtHealthy hatchery, and I get pretty healthy chicks from them, but I am sick and tired of getting boys out of bins marked as being pullets! With local breeders, you can pick through peeps that are about 10 weeks old, at that age you can start feeling spur nubs, so you'll know if you're getting boys or girls.

This spring, my only peeps so far are the 3 silkies I picked up at a chicken swap in Orange, from a lovely local farm. It's been years since I had one. They are healthy, friendly, and awfully cute! And hey, I had silkies WAY before Tori Spelling had hers... humph. She's such a wanna-be...

Dust Bath Day

I know a lot of non-farm people wrinkle their noses and say "chickens are just dirty, smelly animals". They get this mistaken impression from the smells of the tyson farms and such as they drive through the countryside. No doubt, those are smelly, so I can only assume they are dirty. I know the commercial chickens I see bouncing down the highway are a bit manky-looking. But in all fairness, cleanliness wasn't exactly bred into them, they end up on a rotisserie before they'd ever get a skin disease from lack of preening.

In general, most of the chickens I've had have been very fastidious. They preen their feathers constantly, removing bits of feather shaft, loose down, and the occasional molted feather. When they all get to preening it's a veritable dust storm of pale downy feathers and feather dander! Now, they may make a bit of a mess doing this, but the first breeze will carry it all away, and they are left shiny and soft, with nary a feather out of place. They detest mud, and being wet (madder than a wet hen, like silly geese, the saying began for a reason!) and they keep their feet and toenails well tended. Yes, they poop whenever they feel like it, but you'd only notice it with caged chickens or for loose ones just under a favorite night perch. My African Grey parrot makes just as much of that sort of mess, yet she's considered a fancy, elitist sort of pet. Nobody mentions her mess or smell when they hear I have a parrot in my house. Double standard, anyone? As with any house pet, frequent cleaning makes it a non-issue.

The only time I am likely to agree with the city-folk opinion of chickens, is when I open the hen yard and have to step OVER the sprawled, dust-bathing hens. They're digging up the entire entry side of the hen yard, which had previously been nicely covered in straw. They're flopped on their sides, feet waving in the air as they roll around in the dirt. They look like they've all got some rare neurological disease and are dying all over the floor, having seizures while they're at it. I should mention that when this weird act is going on, the little dwarf goat hops up on her perch (a big wooden phone cable spool) and just watches the mayhem. Perhaps she thinks bowling for chickens is no fun when they're already splat on the floor? (I'll save the Petal stories for another time, suffice it to say that bowling for chickens is her favorite sport...)

Anyway, they are so determined to get as dusty as possible, that I literally have to hop over little knots of writhing hens to go check the laying boxes for eggs, since they refuse to move when I loom over them. Clearly they are not intimidated, and in fact they stop their fluffing only long enough to glare at me for blocking the lovely patch of sunshine on my way by. Well. Excuse me!

There is actually a good reason for all this dust bathing. They manage to keep from getting mites and other nasties on their skin by dusting themselves every so often, and then shaking like a wet dog, followed by a thorough preening. I guess maybe they asphyxiate the parasites with all that dust, but however it works, I acknowledge that it is a necessary thing. Now if only I could get them to put the yard to rights when they're done!

Today's Egg Count: 6

the cloudy cold morning followed by blustery hot afternoon put the girls off their game, hopefully none will get sick...

Bravely, bold Sir Robin, bravely ran away, away!

Well, I didn't think there would be anything of interest to write about today, but my chickens proved me wrong.

Yes, it would appear that I am the not-too-proud owner of Sir Robin's mascot. 

Who is Sir Robin, you say? Well, if you don't know, you really ought to watch Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Everyone should be subjected to this film at some point in their life, it's full of memorable moments like the unstoppable killer attack bunny, and lots of catchy tunes (most of which your kids really shouldn't hear...).

One such catchy tune is delivered by a group of annoying minstrels (who later get eaten, yeah!) who sing a disturbing song which regales the frequent lack of heroics by Sir Robin. 

"When danger reared it's ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled, 

Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out,

Bravely taking to his feet, he beat a very brave retreat,

Bravest of the braaaaave! Sir Robin!"

This knight's device on his shield shows a lovely rooster, which was apparently painted the wrong color, since I can assure you it should have been red!

Little did I realize, Sir Robin's rooster has been hiding in the stall that our little Dartmoor pony really wishes she had to herself. He perches either on Wheelie, or wherever else he can manage to escape the notice of the other roosters. 

I didn't realize just how "chicken" a chicken he was until this morning when I left Wheelie's door open after letting her out to graze. This rooster slunk out of the stall, hugging the wall, then snuck through the shed next-door, and tiptoed over to the other barn, all the while exuding a jedi-strength suggestion that he was "not the chicken you're looking for...".

I thought this behavior was a little uncalled for since he is a pretty good sized Rhode Island Red rooster, allbeit a tatty looking one, but still, what was he so afraid of?

After Robin snuck into Nora's stall to see if she left any breakfast tidbits behind, Bubba, the nosy black rooster sauntered over and poked his head in to see if Robin had found anything of interest. I heard a terrified squawk, and Robin burst out of the stall, and ran away! Bubba just watched him run off, a bit startled at the rude greeting he'd gotten. I followed to see where Robin had gone to find that the poor idiot was doing this:

I kid you not, this rooster is in dire need of some self-help lectures. 

You would think he'd been the subject of years of schoolyard bullying with that reaction, but I've actually never seen him get his tail handed to him by the other boys. Go figure.

It's ok to point and laugh, he can't possibly lose any more self-esteem at this point.

It will take a far more skilled counselor than I to find out just why he lost his cocky groove. For now, I hope Wheelie continues to let him hide in her secret clubhouse.

On a side note, he and his brothers are the reason you shouldn't trust the signs on the big tubs full of adorable peeps at the Tractor Supply Co. store. We thought we were buying Rhode Island Pullets (meaning GIRLS) at the TSC a couple years ago. That is, after all, what the sign said. And they were more expensive than the straight run (not gender sorted) peeps, of course. But it became obvious that they'd been mislabeled when they started growing spurs and long dark tail feathers... Lesson learned.

Today's Egg Count: 7 so far, it was gloomy all morning but the sun has come out and it's getting warm, so there will probably be a few more before dark.