No more strictly “garden variety” chickens for us. We loved our Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks, but this time…
We’ve expanded our clientele!
Off of a craigslist ad (where you can seriously trade almost anything – in this case we traded money for pullets), we bought 4 young hens to re-start our “chicks in a bucket” project.
Halley, a Golden Comet breed, is the most adventurous of the 4, and one of only 2 who would come out for a picture.
We haven’t named our Silver-Laced Wyandotte yet, although the breed hails from New York state, so we’ll be on the lookout for a good name when we go visit the Niagara Falls next weekend.
We’ve named one of the secretive Araucanas Arborio. We believe this breed, sometimes called Americaunas or Easter Eggers, was first raised by the Incans and lay either blue-, green-, or pinkish-shelled eggs. Which explains their shy nature – they are used to hiding in or around mountains, and since we don’t have any in the coop, they are just staying hidden under the low boards of the coop.
The jury is still out on what killed our other hens. I have a live trap set – two nights running the critter has eaten the bait food and not sprung the trap.
And the little hens are in the coop all the time now. We will let them roam the yard when they are bigger, and no sooner than when we get back from our trip to New York and Canada. We just don’t want to worry about them while we aren’t home, no matter how far away we are.
Welcome, little friends! Bienvenido al cul-de-sac!
