We have just one Blue Slate hen, named "Swan" She was our only hatchling from a batch of mail order eggs. We had two others that developed fully, but never hatched. Sigh. We hatched her at the same time as some chicks, so we put her under a broody hen with the rest of the chicks. Remember the story of the "Ugly Duckling"? Well, she was the ugly chick, so she got named "Swan". We think she's beautiful.
Swan is a character of the nth order.
Very friendly, calls out and runs or flies to us any time she hears us outside. Because a lone turkey will starve to death, we raised her with a couple of poorly hatched chicks - nicknamed the "Misfits" She "adopted" them, even though they're the same age, and until recently these two hens would tuck up under her wings to sleep at night.
Swan has never shown any temper, except to a young Black Aussie Rooster that tried to throw his weight around. She gave him one look, leapt up in the air landing neatly on his back, did the turkey version of the Mexican Hat Dance on this back and gave him a peck on the head for the grand finale. Wish we would have had the video camera out!!
We have a two year old granddaughter who loves to pet Swan. All in all, we love her, and as we have more eggs (and some chicks given our poor hatch history
) coming, we're hoping she'll get a bit broody (she's already laying eggs) and adopt any babies we get!
I'm curious where you are in the country - none of our feed stores ever carry heritage birds!! We're having to drive 3 hours one way to get ours!
