The last two chickens left to meet are Chewbaca and Cracker. You guess which one is Cracker. Cracker was an effort at diversity believe it or not. As a Buff Orpington breed from England (hence the pasty complexion) she will probably only lay half as many eggs as her friend Chewbaca, another Rhode Island Red, and those three indistinguishable Araucanas. But both Mari and I thought that we needed a bit of variation in our backyard hen population, so a we found us a Buff Orpington in the large caged chicken run of OK Feed and promptly did away with any cultural sensitivity by naming her Cracker at Riley's suggestion. Both of these two chickens are slightly smaller than all the others at this point and mostly flap around hiding or 
following the rest. Chewbaca screams much less than her namesake and fortunately Cracker is not picked on because she is different by all the other chickens. Here is another picture of Cracker racing past me, which is about the best I can get at this point.And this is the chicken house which I have constructed for my six hens. The enclosed compartment on the right was intended for them to lay eggs. So far they have not laid any eggs, they just pile on top of each other and sleep there.
5 comments:
Hey Matt,
Well its been a few years since I got rid of my ducks and goats, and I still miss them, so I'm thrilled to see you enjoying having some livestock. No eggs at all? Thats surprising. Aren't you giving your chickens any love? Also what kind of predators are you in danger of losing chickens to out there? It was foxes, fishers, and bears out in Western Mass and I lost a few ducks I'm sorry to say. I will say that chicks rule, where is your rooster?
-Mark Taylor
hey mark, thanks for the livestock lovin. my hens are only a little more than 3 months old and just haven't hit their prime yet. As for no rooster, well I have no need to make enemies of my neighbors just yet. Hawks are really the only thing to worry about other than the neighbor's pitbulls Diamond and Guero.
Matt,
Yeah I thought you needed 6 months sometimes, or what do they say about your breed?
you're probably right vernon. i think it will be close to 6 months till we get anything, but i have also been told that the heat actually speeds up their process. we shall see. for sure i will post a picture of the first egg.
Matt:
Maybe you should move the BBQ out of the chickens' sight.
Not showing them much lovin' when they're seeing their cousins go up in smoke! (;o)
Could that account for the lack of eggs?
John
Your AFSC Bud
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