Chickens
The chicks are 3 1/2 months old - not much different from the pictures taken at 3 months. But I had some good ones and thought I'd share.
This first one was a nice group shot. The black and white rooster on the left is an adult Barred Rock cock. In the background you can see a Brown Leghorn cock of the same age - both about 18 months now. In the foreground is Blue, the Blue Andalusian. I doubt we'll keep him long term because he splays his legs funny when he walks and as I've mentioned before, roosters have to be nearly perfect to bother keeping them. Immediately to the right of Blue is what's either a Brown Leghorn pullet or a Welsummer pullet. Behind them are a couple Red Stars and other Brown Leghorn/Welsummers.
This is one of the Auracana pullets. We had to kill one of them for disease. Similarly, we killed a Welsummer stag for being sickly.
Here's one of the Red Star pullets.
Here's another one, but with a lot more white in her feathers.
This is a group shot of the adults, ranging from 18 to 36 months old. Chickens can get to 15+ years if you coddle them, although they generally lose fertility around 10. In commercial production, they slaughter meat chickens at anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks, and they kill egg-layers at 2-3 years in favor of a new batch of more productive, younger hens. The rooster in the middle here is a Brown Leghorn. There's a dark and a light variant of Brown Leghorns. The light variant looks like the brown hen in the foreground on the right. The dark variant looks like the dark brown hens at the upper right.
This is the Barred Rock cock.
Here's a hen of the same breed.
This is a Black Sex Link hen. Like the Red Stars, they're a cross of two heritage/traditional breeds and the hybrid is easy to sex as a chick, plus has superior egg-laying qualities.
This is either a New Hampshire Red or a Rhode Island Red. I'm not sure which. My father swears he didn't buy any Rhode Island Reds, only New Hampshires, but we clearly have two different kinds of adult red hens.
Here's the other kind. To me, there's a difference.
You might not know, but chickens have two eyelids much like reptiles. Often, they only blink the inner one, which is called a nictitating membrane. I generally discard photos that have the chickens blinking with it, but on this one, the focus was good so I thought I'd share it.
Speaking of photos I discard, this sort would usually be deleted but I found a weird humor in how the heads were positioned. Chickens are lively and I get a lot of pictures of their tails or backs or an empty spot where they used to be standing. I took 63 pictures yesterday and kept 12, two of which I would have normally tossed as well.
This first one was a nice group shot. The black and white rooster on the left is an adult Barred Rock cock. In the background you can see a Brown Leghorn cock of the same age - both about 18 months now. In the foreground is Blue, the Blue Andalusian. I doubt we'll keep him long term because he splays his legs funny when he walks and as I've mentioned before, roosters have to be nearly perfect to bother keeping them. Immediately to the right of Blue is what's either a Brown Leghorn pullet or a Welsummer pullet. Behind them are a couple Red Stars and other Brown Leghorn/Welsummers.
This is one of the Auracana pullets. We had to kill one of them for disease. Similarly, we killed a Welsummer stag for being sickly.
Here's one of the Red Star pullets.
Here's another one, but with a lot more white in her feathers.
This is a group shot of the adults, ranging from 18 to 36 months old. Chickens can get to 15+ years if you coddle them, although they generally lose fertility around 10. In commercial production, they slaughter meat chickens at anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks, and they kill egg-layers at 2-3 years in favor of a new batch of more productive, younger hens. The rooster in the middle here is a Brown Leghorn. There's a dark and a light variant of Brown Leghorns. The light variant looks like the brown hen in the foreground on the right. The dark variant looks like the dark brown hens at the upper right.
This is the Barred Rock cock.
Here's a hen of the same breed.
This is a Black Sex Link hen. Like the Red Stars, they're a cross of two heritage/traditional breeds and the hybrid is easy to sex as a chick, plus has superior egg-laying qualities.
This is either a New Hampshire Red or a Rhode Island Red. I'm not sure which. My father swears he didn't buy any Rhode Island Reds, only New Hampshires, but we clearly have two different kinds of adult red hens.
Here's the other kind. To me, there's a difference.
You might not know, but chickens have two eyelids much like reptiles. Often, they only blink the inner one, which is called a nictitating membrane. I generally discard photos that have the chickens blinking with it, but on this one, the focus was good so I thought I'd share it.
Speaking of photos I discard, this sort would usually be deleted but I found a weird humor in how the heads were positioned. Chickens are lively and I get a lot of pictures of their tails or backs or an empty spot where they used to be standing. I took 63 pictures yesterday and kept 12, two of which I would have normally tossed as well.