Catchin some rays with the girls...

[vonrow]

We had to boot all the chickens out of the coop today to build dividers and a new "apartment" for our new birds. I figured out a way to set the unused space in the coop aside for our newest additions to the flock. The newbies are about 4 weeks old and they are a bit small to be left alone with the adult birds. But they are too big to leave them in the brooders. While working on the new space for the youngsters I stopped to fetch the camera to take pics of the coop and the rest of the flock. They were all outside and enjoying the sunshine. The birds in this photo were added to the coop about a month ago. They are all from our first hatch back in February. The ladies were taking a dust bath in the sunshine and then the young males decided to come over and hang out with the girls. Heh, teenagers right? Can you spot the 2 boys?

 

[SnowPeeOstrichU]

aww, how cute! what breed?

 

[vonrow]

Three of them are Silver Laced Wyandotte and 'cauna crosses. The other 2 are pure SLW. He's not the head of the flock, but he keeps real close tabs on the other 4. He even intervenes and steps between them and the other birds if the adults try to enforce the pecking order. He'd rather they peck at him than let the adults get to his 4 some. Here's another shot of him... pretty easy to pick
out the guys in this one. My favorite hen is camera shy. She inherited the rumpless and puffy cheek traits from her mommy--but she looks like a pure SLW otherwise. As a chick I thought for sure she was a pure SLW. haha, surprise! (she's the one of the far right)

 

[SnowPeeOstrichU]

They're adorable! I want to get SLWs eventually but currently have 17 chicks in brooders :O some friends will be taking six but still can't get more for a while..

 

[vonrow]

We spent a couple years researching and looking at different chickens to find a dual purpose, winter-hardy breed. We ended up with the SLW. Man, what a fantastic choice too! Since then we've added GLW, Austrolorps, and a few Blue Polish to the mix. We've been hatching chicks from our SLW and 'cauna stock since February... almost 300 chicks so far. (sold em almost as fast as they'd hatch too) Still have 2 incubators to go before we end the season. And in addition to all of our hatched babies, we took delivery of 113 broilers this morning, from our favorite hatchery. It's chicken-central here at the farm today. hehe


SnowPea, your lil one looks like ours did a few weeks ago. Adorable lil cotton-heads aint they?