Our Yard Birds
Our first batch
of chicks were from McMurray Hatchery. We got a mixed breed
called "Black Star" and some Speckled Sussex. These were dark red
colored birds (mahogany was the color given) with white feather tips.
They promised to be really pretty birds. Following are some
pictures of some of them.
Many people ask me... "What makes a brown egg brown?" Well, you may not believe the answer and most of them are shocked when I tell them. Or they laugh and find that it is very interesting.
If you look at the two hens below you will see something. Look at the first, the buff minorca hen, on the side of her face, behind and below her eye is a white patch. We call this the earlobe. Hers is white. She lays white eggs. On the next hen, the same patch is red. She lays brown eggs. Of course there are many shades of brown from different breeds of chickens. This particular breed of chicken lays a very light beige colored egg. Others lay darker eggs. The Black Star girls lay the darkest of the eggs that we get here.
Many people ask me... "What makes a brown egg brown?" Well, you may not believe the answer and most of them are shocked when I tell them. Or they laugh and find that it is very interesting.
If you look at the two hens below you will see something. Look at the first, the buff minorca hen, on the side of her face, behind and below her eye is a white patch. We call this the earlobe. Hers is white. She lays white eggs. On the next hen, the same patch is red. She lays brown eggs. Of course there are many shades of brown from different breeds of chickens. This particular breed of chicken lays a very light beige colored egg. Others lay darker eggs. The Black Star girls lay the darkest of the eggs that we get here.
This
is a Minorca hen. She This is a
Speckled Sussex
hen. She This is a Speckled Sussex
rooster.
He's
didn't make the show "cut" has a few too many spots but she is worried about the cat but this is the best because she has white in her only for the yard. picture of his coloring and spots. A very
breast and black in her tail. beautiful bird in my opinion.
She's nice for the yard.
didn't make the show "cut" has a few too many spots but she is worried about the cat but this is the best because she has white in her only for the yard. picture of his coloring and spots. A very
breast and black in her tail. beautiful bird in my opinion.
She's nice for the yard.
This is Monty on
the left (in the front) when he
was a baby. He had the most beautifully colored down of any chick
we have ever hatched. The picture doesn't do him any justice at
all other than to show how cute he was. At this age, he loved
being held and would go to sleep in my hand. His down was
"multi-colored" and that's how he got the name Monty. We couldn't
very well call him "Multi" could we?
To the right is Monty almost all grown up. He was a very nice looking bird and showed great promise for the future top bird. His multi-colored back had changed and he wasn't quite as pretty but he was still nice. He made the mistake of feeding a coyote one evening. The only draw-back of a free-range lifestyle... predators!
The first year we had these birds, I made the mistake of hatching several eggs out. Monty was in that hatch. I had intentionally bought birds that were known for setting on their eggs. However, I didn't realize that hens would go broody when they were only a year old. I hatched out about 20 all together, I think. I wanted to have enough by the end of the following year to continue next years flock. (The coyotes and hawks had taken quite a few of my beginning stock.) When summer hit, the hens went broody and I had quite a time limiting the number of eggs I let them set. I was afraid that if I didn't let them hatch some this year, that next year they wouldn't try at all. It's quite a challenge, some days, to reach into the nest of a broody hen. She gets completely upset with you and some of them bite pretty hard.
This is only a very small sampling of the birds that run around loose on our property. We sell eggs that are multi-colored and more beautiful, in our opinion, than a dozen of any color eggs that are all the same. The shades range from white to off-white through beige and pinkish and finally to some that are a rosy brown and pretty dark in color. They're beautiful all mixed together.
Well, this is where we got started. We wanted chickens to control the flies generated by our horses. They would also scratch down the manure so it could dry and be used for fertilizer more readily. That was two years ago this past spring. It is mid-summer as I write this. We have an assortment of birds out there now. Mostly, we have Black Star crosses. The Speckled Sussex, that I thought would have the better camoflauge, are the ones that got picked off! We now have only two sussex hens left out of about 8 original hens. We had several roosters but we sold some and butchered others. The females of this breed are really sweet birds that aren't overly fearful but the males all turned out to be really mean. They would attack you without having been provoked. They would come up behind you and the next thing you would feel was claws, spurs and beaks! They weren't easy to deter either. I would like to get some more sussex hens for my yard.
To the right is Monty almost all grown up. He was a very nice looking bird and showed great promise for the future top bird. His multi-colored back had changed and he wasn't quite as pretty but he was still nice. He made the mistake of feeding a coyote one evening. The only draw-back of a free-range lifestyle... predators!
The first year we had these birds, I made the mistake of hatching several eggs out. Monty was in that hatch. I had intentionally bought birds that were known for setting on their eggs. However, I didn't realize that hens would go broody when they were only a year old. I hatched out about 20 all together, I think. I wanted to have enough by the end of the following year to continue next years flock. (The coyotes and hawks had taken quite a few of my beginning stock.) When summer hit, the hens went broody and I had quite a time limiting the number of eggs I let them set. I was afraid that if I didn't let them hatch some this year, that next year they wouldn't try at all. It's quite a challenge, some days, to reach into the nest of a broody hen. She gets completely upset with you and some of them bite pretty hard.
This is only a very small sampling of the birds that run around loose on our property. We sell eggs that are multi-colored and more beautiful, in our opinion, than a dozen of any color eggs that are all the same. The shades range from white to off-white through beige and pinkish and finally to some that are a rosy brown and pretty dark in color. They're beautiful all mixed together.
Well, this is where we got started. We wanted chickens to control the flies generated by our horses. They would also scratch down the manure so it could dry and be used for fertilizer more readily. That was two years ago this past spring. It is mid-summer as I write this. We have an assortment of birds out there now. Mostly, we have Black Star crosses. The Speckled Sussex, that I thought would have the better camoflauge, are the ones that got picked off! We now have only two sussex hens left out of about 8 original hens. We had several roosters but we sold some and butchered others. The females of this breed are really sweet birds that aren't overly fearful but the males all turned out to be really mean. They would attack you without having been provoked. They would come up behind you and the next thing you would feel was claws, spurs and beaks! They weren't easy to deter either. I would like to get some more sussex hens for my yard.
