*Better Pictures Added* Update!! Our Australorps are Home

[Whitewater]

Our trio of Black Australorp pullets came home tonight! And they are snoozing on their roost right now, although they have a 39" long roost, they all huddled up in the corner in the same 6" or thereabouts, guess they needed some togetherness, or something

Hubby and I let the farm owners catch the three girls, though we made sure they couldn't get out of the box. It took a few minutes but after everybody was in and in the car, the chickens settled down quite nicely. They didn't make much noise on the way home, but they did tend to complain with a peevish though low cluck/mutter sound every time I had to stop for a red light.

I didn't have the chance to take a lot of pics at the farm, sorry -- I had to take the pictures we have with my cell phone, which is only 2mp, so these aren't the greatest shots. I'll post some better ones tomorrow with my real camera.

Anyway, this first picture is them immediately after we opened their box in their henhouse. Too funny!

Then, they ran and hid in the safest place they could find:

After that, the boldest one started to explore the hen house:

We put some lettuce in the henhouse to try to make them feel a bit more welcome, but they weren't having any. In fact, one of them gave me this look when she noticed it (the boldest one again!):

It didn't take them long to get settled in for the night, although they were still pretty anxious as night fell. I don't know how long it will take them to figure out the ramp down. Oh, and our two Standard Poodles never even noticed our chickens, even when they made noise -- which they did (sounded like a strangled loon or elk call, as well as more muttering and something that sounded very close to a cat's purr). Playing fetch with me and Hubby was much more fun!

Sorry about the quality of the pictures, I'll get some better ones tomorrow, when I've got a real camera and it's sunny outside instead of being almost dusk.


Whitewater

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

congratulations!!!!

 

[Angelic Vampyre]

Yeah! I am picking one up on the weekend as well!

 

[Whitewater]

I'm sure you'll love him/her! We already love our three and they've only been here 3 hours.


Whitewater

 

[Rachel'sFlock]

Oh congratulations, whitewater! They are gorgeous! I can hardly wait 'til my little Aussie chooks look like those proud creatures! Beautiful!!!
Wondering...how old are they?

Brightest Blessings

 

[Whitewater]

They are 14.5 weeks old

And the farmer people who hatched them said they got the eggs from either McMurrey hatchery or the other one that begins with an M, I forget. They couldn't remember exactly.


Whitewater

 

[Rachel'sFlock]

They are just magnificent!
My brood is 5.5 wks old...so we have a ways to go, yet!
Thanks, whitewater!

Blessings

 

[kfchickenlady]

Finally here!!! wow they are just gorgeous, I love this breed, the best layers Ive ever had anyway, and so pretty! Your captions cracked me up! Congratulations!!!

 

[Cetawin]

You will love the Aussies. I had 7 of them but rehomed 4 of the in Oregon before I moved out here. I brought my favorite three with me though. Great girls.

 

[Whitewater]

Well, today our three girls are still acting like, well, like chickens, they refuse to leave the henhouse and I had to bring their food and water to them, but they are eating and drinking well and seem happy if very nervous and confused. I am hoping they settle down soon, all this stress can't be good for them

I discovered that the boldest pullet (who is now my favorite and whom I have named Antigone) is probably some sort of an odd cross as she has brown eyes instead of black and some brown feathers tipped in black on her throat. She still has black legs and yellow feet, though. The other two pretty much hit the breed standard more or less, considering that they are hatchery birds. I was also much interested to see that Antigone's comb and wattles are a shade or two redder and more developed than the others . . . I'm going to predict that Antigone will lay first!

Although I could be totally wrong . . . can Australorps have brown eyes and brown touches here and there?

The loudest pullet (which isn't saying much, I couldn't even hear her 5 feet away, weeding the veggie garden) I have named Cassandra, LOL. She is pretty much of the same size as the third in the trio, who doesn't have a name yet and really isn't very remarkable yet. She is a quiet, retiring sort, I may call her Hestia.

I took some MUCH better pictures today, here are the best ones:

A close-up of Antigone, to show off her beautiful feathers:

Here are Hestia and Cassandra chowing down on the Flock Raiser I scattered for them -- you'd think they hadn't eaten in weeks!

This is an amusing picture of two of them inspecting the nest boxes:

All three of them eventually got in there, and it's not very big, 18"hx14"acrossx12" deep . . . but hey, whatever works.

I gave them some dud radishes from out of my garden today (lots of foliage, tiny marble sized radish) and they seemed to enjoy pecking at the radishes themselves, though I don't know if they'll actually eat it. They ate the lettuce from last night and appeared to like that.

Oh -- we'd be able to tell by now if they were roosters, right? The farm folks said that they'd exchange another hen with us if we did accidentally get a rooster, but I don't think that's going to happen. They all look like females to me!


Whitewater