Sunday, September 14, 2008
So this weekend I got Seramas. (If you don’t know, Serama are said to be the worlds smallest breed of chicken.) All of them were aquired for specific breeding projects (Mille Fluer and Dun) except this fella who I just had to have when I saw him. I met someone on a the BYC board who is a Serama breeder and she was kind enough to get me started with breeding. She gave a friend and me several birds to get to going. Since I’m such a huge fan of Mille Fleur as a pattern I had to work on that pattern, and she had some gorgeous Dun birds I simply couldn’t pass up.
Anyway, this guy is named Napoleon. Because he’s tiny with huge attitude. His mottling is fantastic in my opinion. I just really love the way he looks. He’s young, around 4-5 months so one of the older hens I got tried to bully him around some. He had nothing of it. He dove in and showed that girl who was boss right away. He weighs in at a grand 8.5ozs. I don’t expect him to get much bigger which makes him in the smallest class of Serama.
We’ve been keeping him inside with us a lot because he wasn’t too tame yet and I’m hoping to show him this winter if he fills in early enough.
He started to really calm down eventually even fell asleep in my hands.
I’m going to give him a little time before I breed him. He’s given me reason to think he might not quite be genetically healthy, but he’s still my favorite right now.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Last time I posted about chickens not getting busy and laying eggs a couple of more got started a day or two later. So now I’m going to see if I can have the same luck again!
Camellia here, along with her fellow Buff Orpingtons, Cindy and Beth are not laying yet. I’m really excited for them to start I’ve heard they lay some of the biggest eggs of any breed. She’s looking old enough - all the Buff Orpingtons have gone through a bit of a change in feathering lately, they’ve gone from being more of a gold color to a pale yellow on their bodies while keeping the gold on their head and necks. They’re wattles are starting to get more red and their combs are growing quite a bit.
I think they must be close to laying. At least I want them to be.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
We’ve had so much rain and Buttercup hasn’t been enjoying it.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
We have a family of deer that live in the woods that surround us. I’ve been trying to get a better picture but this girl spooks so easily I haven’t been able.
The chickens really seem to like her though. As she walks along the back of the fence the chickens follow. If some of them have escaped the pen they’ll zip around her feet like cats do so often to us. A noticable difference though is I don’t think the deer cares if it steps on a chicken - its just concerned with going where ever it goes.
These deer are beautiful. Too bad they insist on eating my tomato plants.