Saturday, January 20, 2007

My Little Chicken Project





A friend of mine has these little chickens, and I thought they were so adorable! It's been a closed flock for three or four years now; she calls them her River Glenn chickens (named for her farm.) She'd started with an Aracuana rooster; the breed which lays blue or green eggs, added some sort of bantam and then a few pheonix to her original mix; what she has now are several color patterns, some of which lay colored eggs and roosters who tend to grow super long tails. I decided to get a few from her and attempt to have blue chickens (smokey gray, really) that would lay blue eggs.





My little flock is still young; this year I'll try incubating some of the colored eggs and keep the chicks that are black. I've got two roos that are completely different in terms of body type and color, and I can't decide which one I like best! If the white headed one had the long tail feathers of the other roo, he'd be my pick. Hopefully I can come up with some babies that develop what I'm looking for, eh?



Of course, knowing which roo is the pappa to the new chicks may be helpful, as it could be that a cross of one roo and one hen gives me something I like, where the same roo with a different hen gives me something completely different. Then again, does it really matter? I'm not into chicken shows, I just like watching my chickens scratch and peck the ground. And being little like these guys are (not much meat for the stew pot, I'm afraid) they're really more a novelty than a production bird. Wonder if I'll ever get people knocking at my door looking for River Glenn Blues?

Little blue hen with silver head...isn't she pretty?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Knock, knock......I want one (or two, or three) They're beautiful! Is it wrong to have chicken envy?
E-less

Tracey said...

Hmmm, I don't think it's wrong...and if you're serious, I'll send you chicks this spring!

Anonymous said...

I would love to get some chicks! I've been drooling over the new Murray McMurray catalog. Do you get it? I'm trying to convince DH that we need the Special Assorted Bargain. E-less

Tracey said...

If you seriously want some, I'll send you some! They're pretty prolific layers come spring/summer. I've got a couple (I'm pretty sure two) that are laying light, creamy eggs (one of them is a pied, so it was expected), but then I've got at least one blue hen that is laying blue eggs. Have you got any preference? Or would you just like an assortment? It'd be fun to have someone else raising them, too!

Anonymous said...

I really am serious. ;0) I'd love a blue egg layer, but I'd be happy with anything. How fun! Just let me know what I need to do to get them. In the mean time I'll get DH working on my chicken coops so I can keep them separate from the other chickens. E-less

Tracey said...

Well, okie dokie, E-less! I'll let you know when I've got eggs/chicks in the spring. I've got one pied hen that's been laying (infrequently) all winter, which is more than any of my full sized birds ever did. I'm rather happy, considering the coop is in the trees so lighting is worse than ever, plus it's been far colder this year than past winters. They're small birds, so you need two eggs instead of one, but boy are they cute!

Anonymous said...

I agree with you, they are cute!!! E-less

Anonymous said...

Well, I got up the nerve and showed DH the pictures of your chickens and he likes them!! I still haven't convinced on my order to Murray McMurry though.
E-less

Anonymous said...

Augh... they're gorgeous. Your reddish roo reminds me of our half-bantie roo in some ways. Quite purdy.

Will you, by any chance, be looking to sell some hatching eggs?

Of course, this would require me to actually go and get that incubator at the tractor store, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? *shifty-eyes*