Here's a couple of them roosting next to an adult hen. The chicks are very sweet, and I can pick them up without much fuss. They are going to be nice birds. I'm tempted to keep the whole group and have a nice flock of Buff O's next year for selling hatching eggs out of. Maybe I could put that giant incubator to work.
I finally captured Mama Hen's babies and put them in the brooder. She had completely abandoned them, and they weren't even feathered out yet! They were all huddling together out in the yard, getting rained on, and I decided enough was enough! I want to see these little girls (I hope) grow up, I'm particularly curious to see what 'Speckles' looks like.
About two weeks ago a friend gave me back a hen I gave her last year as a chick.
The hen is a Splash Orpington. My friend and I bought ten chicks last year to split, and I ended up giving mine to her as well. She raised them, had some trouble with coyotes, gave away the roos, and ended up with just this one splash hen left! Since she was switching her flock over to dark egglayers, she gave this girl to me.
The first day she was here, I got a call from the neighbors asking if I had lost a chicken. 'Maybe', I said, 'what's it look like'. 'It's white'. 'Yeah, I'll be right over'. Apparently the other girls had run her off, and she'd gone looking for greener pastures.
This morning I heard the dogs barking, and went out to see what was up, and she had jumped out of the chicken yard again, and apparently the dogs had chased her all over and finally cornered her under a bush. When I got out there Jack was watching, Navi was running in circles, and Barclay was barking at the poor chicken from about 6 inches away trying to get her to run so he could chase her some more! Her tail feathers were scattered all over! While I was rounding up dogs (calmly, and telling them how good they were for not eating her), Navi ran up to her and sniffed at her and ran away again. I was glad to see nobody was actually trying to kill her! Finally I got the dogs put away and got the chicken back in the yard where she belonged. She's lucky all she lost was her tail! She could have been doggie breakfast!
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