I have a few blacks growing out myself. I am in love with how they look, too. My lavs want to live with you, though as we never have any green grass here...
WOw ! Great pictures! Your Lavender Aracauna project is coming along good, I see tufts on one of them. Also that new white orpington pullet on your webpage is gorgous!
Majestic, hehe I know how you feel. Our flight pens never have grass or not very long anyway. That was on their free range day. We alternate flocks to ensure every one gets time on fresh pasture and grass. It seems to keep em happy.
uss - thanks so much! I do feel the lav araucana are coming along nicely. In that particular group they all have tufts, except one pullet. That cockerel has pretty nice ones and the others are on the small side, but we'll continue to work on building up to nice big tufts as we progress. And then we lost one of the really nice tufty pullets to an accident, which is always frustrating.
It's amazing how far we have come with our white araucana. We started with a single pair of rumpless whites - both clean faced. Putting tufts on them and fixing their leg color and poor combs really took some time. I'm really happy with how they're coming along as well.