Chicken Heel
Songster
- Jun 8, 2019
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- 2,464
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The more I read your description of the Carolina Bantams, they sound most like what my Grandpa Shook had in the mountains of NW North Carolina in the 1960's. His chickens had free run of the property surrounding his two barns that included pastures and hardwood forests. Your description of the hens and roosters are what I recall his looking like. He gave me my first chickens that included a mostly black hen and 12 chicks. A year later I had more than 80 running loose on our property in Burke County NC. One hen came out of a brush pile with 18 chicks that spring. Your picture above reminded of that moment in time.That was what I read about the Carolina bantams. Natural selection made them mostly black with flecks of red or brown in the hens and some roosters, while other roosters retained the natural brown red/BBR coloration. I recently turned 4 not quite half-grown black and brown OEGBs into the woods at the far end of my farm and they blended right in to the understory. Hardwoods in the deep southeast have a tendency to have dark soil and understory. BTW, of the 4, 1 made it back to the OEGB coop a week later. I haven't seen any sign of the other 3 but I haven't looked down in the swamp I turned them loose in either. I was impressed that he survived a week in the woods.
Here's some pics of the Christmas hatch:
Raptor's (actually later than the Christmas hatch):
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Oddly colored pullet:
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Hei Hei's (I'm keeping this one)
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I ended up with 35 bitties from 4 hens off of the last batch that all sat at the same time. They've lost 5 bitties free ranging but so be it. I think I have a big enough flock I can afford to let the strongest survive.
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