Darnit! Why oh WHY did I get Black Australorps?

[willheveland]

They are too good of layers to put in the freezer.BA's are a bird that should be kept 2-3 years + Will

 

[mom wewantchicks!]

all i have to say is my ba are like babies. the guy at the feed store said they were br and i was thinking,omg what are this plain ugly black chicks lol. now that they are all grown up they are the sweetest things ever,i couldnt imagine eating one.

 

[KattyKillFish]

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[Hens_And_Chicks]

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[embkm]

The reason I picked our BA was because she was the friendliest bird the man had. She started talking to us as soon as we walked up to the pen and was the first that would let us pet her.

 

[chickenfever]

This is funny, I've had the opposite experience w/my BA girls. They are the most standoffish of all my birds.

My BA roo, Mighty, was a different story though. Just like you, from the start he was so friendly and would jump on my hand or arm when I reached into the brooder. I just loved him. He stayed that friendly too, every time I would go outside he would come up and let me pet him, and even rub up against my leg.
However, he did change when the hormones really kicked in. Although he stayed fairly friendly to me, we ended up putting him in the fridge this week. I would have kept him, he was a great protector of his flock and he was Beautiful! But, he became so aggressive towards my 3yo son that he was afraid to even go outside.

I was really impressed with the amount of meat on him, he dressed out very nicely.

 

[mylilchix]

We love our BAs!! I could never see eating them. Should have gotten cornish rocks. lol I wanted to get rid of those guys by the 3rd week.

Sonja

 

[the_great_snag]

Now I never had problems with my cornish rocks.... Mine were very friendly and let me scratch their heads when I fed them.

That made it easy to catch them for their appointment with the freezer... sorry... I'm cold-hearted I guess...

Anyway, McMurrays sent me some red star roos as packing peanuts one time. They were extremely good natured and grew really fast the first few weeks. Unfortunately they never grew very fast after they feathered out, and they were too calm in the end, because I had a feral tom cat kill off most of them with no problem.

 

[mtnhomechick]

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How old are they.....sometimes they get friendlier after they start laying.

 

[chickensioux]

Yeah, I can't imagine eating any of my girls, they're just pets, but my BA is one of my sweetest (Olive). She follows me everywhere including out of the chicken pen so she can scratch in my flower beds. She's spoiled rotten...