Little Blue

Earlier this year we purchased what we thought were four White Crested Polish Chickens. We ended up with two White Crested, one Golden Laced and one Blue Polish. We were excited to have a "blue chicken". My husband actually made a card game called the Blue Chicken Game named after the Blue Polish a few years ago. You can read about the Blue Chicken Game here.

Our little Blue is very different from our other chickens. She's smaller in size compared to the others. Very much a loner, she will actually roost on an old chick feeder on the floor or roost on the wood pile outside at night (which if we find her outside we pick her up and place her in the chicken house) to stay away from the other chickens. When in the yard she scratches and feeds away from the other chickens too. 

If I'm outside I will go and visit with her. If she doesn't see me coming, because of all her feathers on top of her head, I will pick her up. She doesn't enjoy being handled and will squirm and squawk in protest. Then when I put her down, she will turn on me peck my foot or charge my leg to let me know she is angry with me. 

Unfortunately for Blue, she doesn't seem real smart. We have found her in some unusual spots, like being caught in our shed and between a pile of lumber and the fence. God must have been looking out for her, because she spent about 24 hours in the shed with no food or water and lived. When caught between the lumber and the fence she was able to feed in a circle around herself because of the bugs she found.

The one thing I find the funniest about Blue is all the feathers on her head. They are not neat and clean as our White Crested Polish Chicken's head feathers are. She looks like she has constant bed head. When she is walking or searching for food you can see her shake her head trying to get the feathers out of her eyes so she can see where she is going. 

As dumb as she is, I've enjoyed having her and I think I may order a few more Blue Chickens from cacklehatchery.com next year. 

More Roosters!

After we gave away our two roosters, we thought that was it. No more roosters. Nice quiet chicken yard. Wrong! Mohawk, our Golden Laced Polish was a rooster too! The most beautiful bird we've ever had. It took some time to realize he was a rooster. I believed he was crowing, my husband didn't. Then Mohawk started standing on his tiptoes and crowing at my husband and charging him. My husband believed then.

I kept asking everyone I knew who has chickens if they wanted a beautiful rooster. One that could be shown at a county fair. No takers. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever find a home for him. I was starting to get a little nervous. He had started to crow more and more and I kept waiting for the neighbors to complain. (Thankfully we have great neighbors and no one complained.)

Perplexed with my rooster situation, I decided to go relax at the local county fair. Going through all the animal exhibits, I met a lady with two baby goats. The goats were only three weeks old and I couldn't help visiting and petting them. I started talking chickens with the goat lady and explained my dilemma. She took my number and said she may have a friend who would want him. (I didn't hold my breathe.) A few days later she called, her friend wanted the rooster. Hooray!

Fair lady's baby goats. 

Knowing the lady and her friend were coming to get Mohawk, the fun began. Mohawk doesn't like to be picked up. He runs fast and isn't easily caught. When he is captured he squirms, tries to fight and makes all kinds of chicken sounds in protest. Thankfully the day they were coming one of my husband's customers was present and assisted in the rounding up of Mohawk. The men went outside, I followed close behind with camera in hand. The chase began. (Steps to catch a chicken)

Step —Enter yard, making birds think it is snack time. 

Step 2—Find your desired victim. 

Step 3—Surround him,  hunched over and arms spread wide.

Step 4—(Quick capture by customer), hand over bird to husband.  

Step 5—Try to calm captured bird.

Step 6—Smile proudly, your customer caught the bird. 

Step 7—Provide snack to calm other birds  

Step 8—Keep giving snacks until birds forget their caged friend.

Step 9—Capture a bird on your own to prove you can. 

They came with a cage and off Mohawk went to his new home filled with female chickens. I guess he went to his Garden of Eden for Chickens. I sure hope he is happy.

The only problem I have now is, I still have a new chicken crowing and can't figure out which one yet!!

Cherry Picking

We have an abundant crop of fruit from our nine fruit trees this year.  Our cherries are almost ripe enough for picking. They have only a hint of sourness yet. But that hasn't stopped some of our young chickens from enjoying them.

Chicken in the Cherry Tree. 

Choosing which cherry. 

Going in for the bite. 

Our chickens are comical. Is it any wonder we don't have TV?

Splash

We've had Araucana Chickens as long as we had chickens. They're beautiful birds splashed in colors of gold, brown and black feathers. They're very mild-tempered birds. They are nicknamed Easter Eggers because of the color of their eggs; blue, green, pink or yellow.

Araucana Chick

Araucana Hen (Our Oldest Bird, Goldie)

Araucana Hen (Our Second Oldest, Araucana #1)

Little did I know Araucanas are not only brown, gold and black but also white and black. The last batch of Araucanas chicks we purchased had one who grew up to be black and white. I thought, "how strange" and googled Black and White Araucanas. I found out my bird was not uncommon and was called a Splash. How fun to learn something new.

Our little girl Splash. 

Rockett

Rockett our chicken was injured by our male duck a while back. You can read about the incident here. She  is doing well despite not growing all her feathers back. It has been surprised me how fast she healed.

Here are a few of the most recent pics of her and her injury site. 

My husband Ted and Rockett. 

Rockett, her favorite pasttime eating.

Rockett and her sister Twin 1.  

Injury site, intact no feathers. 

Injury

Roosters

Living in town, we have to be considerate of our neighbors. We try to keep our animal areas clean to keep down the odor and flies and try to choose animals that don't make loud noise.

Unfortunately sometimes when buying chicks you end up with roosters. Roosters are very loud. Not a good thing when you have close neighbors. We found we had two, which we promptly gave away. 

It was hard for me to give them away. They were only babies yet, not even three months old. One was a White Crested Polish and the other a Brahma. The Brahma was large for his age and the Polish was small.  They're living now on a Menonite farm with lots of chickens to chase after. 

White Crested Polish 

Brahma 

The only problem now is, I still have a rooster. I hear him crowing as I open the door of the chicken house but he stops when the door is open. I haven't caught him in his crowing act yet. But as soon as I do off to the Menonite Farm he goes. 

The babies are growing up

Our baby chicks are growing up. They're no longer the small, easy to catch and pick up little chicks. They're about two and a half months old now. We moved them into the chicken house with the adults to make room for our other babies. You can see their first baby pictures here and here.