The backyard bug-patrol

[Ranitomeya]

So, I've never had dogs or cats... but I do have chickens! They wander around my backyard freely during the day if I'm home to let them out and keep an eye on them--both to make sure predators don't get to them and to be there to calm them down in case something like a squirrel freaks them out. They're quite fond of all the delicious snacks that the rain brings out of the ground--both plants and animals alike. They roost in a lockable shed-like building to protect them from raccoons, opossums, and other nocturnal predators.

Here they are trying to eat their way through the particle board blocking the vent that leads directly under my computer desk. They know I'm here, and they want in! If I don't go out there and give them treats, they're determined to come inside to get it! The picture doesn't quite show the difference in size as they're lined up and spaced apart just right. The smallest of them, the one in the front, has about half the mass-- if that--of the largest, which is the one in the back.

This one is called Tundra. She's a bantam hybrid of some sort, very possibly old english game crossed with silver sebright. She's the most inquisitive of the three and likes to beg for treats--even going as far as jumping onto you with wet and muddy feet! Being such a small chicken, she's actually very capable of flight. I've once watched her fly from one end of the yard to the next, fly straight up to nearly 20 feet, and then loop back towards the side of the yard she started from to land on the edge of the roof above!

This one, the fluffiest of them all, is called Fluffy or... Stew, depending on the person you ask. He's a silkie bantam, a very neat breed of chickens with dark skin, non-functional barbicels on the feathers, and five toes on each foot.

This one is Ginger. She's an easter-egger chicken, a "breed" of chicken that can lay eggs with blue or green egg shells. They're not considered to be a true breed of chicken as they originated as the product of crossing several different breeds of chickens with a type of chicken from South America that is known to lay blue and green colored eggs.

I'm only allowed to keep two of them, as per city code, so one will soon be heading for the stewpot... It's unfortunately going to be the fluffiest of them all as it is very likely a rooster. I'd probably have started with just two if I could have been 100% sure of the sexes, but that is unfortunately not normally possible.

 

[patrickfraser]

Fluffy looks pretty pissed. Wait until he finds out HE'S for din din. :chef:

 

[Ranitomeya]

That's how he's always looked. I think he's just grouchy because he can't get more than a couple feet off the ground with his wing feathers. I used to have to pick him up and put him on the perch the other chickens roost on because he couldnt get up there on his own. He'd jump on a bunch of things and get up to a window and look inside and make noise until someone went out there and put him on the perch for the evening.

 

[patrickfraser]

I was tempted by the different chicks/chickens available at the county fair the last time I went, but dog would not get along with them.

 

[Termite48]

Michael: I do not know much about all the chicken species, but some of the names I do recall from my months on a small farm during college. Is not Ginger an Arcana? I remember having some of them and the hen laid pastel colored eggs. There was also a Japanese Silkie similar to yours with the softest plumage one could imagine. We had a huge almost pure black irridescent rooster which I was told was an Australope. They are fun.

 

[Ranitomeya]

There's a breed called the Araucana that is nearly the same, except the qualifying trait for that "breed" happens to be that the chicken must be rumpless and have feather tufts near the ears. The gene for ear tufts happens to be lethal when they are homozygous for it, so breeders will either cross theirs with other breeds--resulting in chickens that are either considered Araucanas or easter eggers depending on whether or not they're rumpless and tufted--or they'll breed them together and hatch out very few chicks. There are also a category of chickens that go by the name of Ameraucana that are easter eggers that fall under a recognized set of plumage characteristics. I got all my chickens from a county fair and would have chosen specific breeds, but the chicks sold at the fair were both mixed and unlabeled. I was lucky to be able to have some idea of what I was getting based on the plumage characteristics the chicks of these breeds show. I would have loved to get an Australorpe as they're supposed to be a very docile breed that's known to have exceptional egg production rates.