Aw, well I hope you figure out what to do with her! My current plan is to see what happens with Reuby and Winty. The bigger cockerels have begun chest bumping amongst themselves, so Vander may start getting some spunk soon, too. That will be the real test. Of course, if he tries anything with Reuby, he'll have another thing coming. I watched Reuby kick Winter's behind half way across the chicken yard the other day for daring dance at Margaret in front of him.
I think Winter learned a pretty hard lesson that day.
Anyway, happy Independence Day!
I have some pictures to share today. I actually took them yesterday, but before I could upload them a big storm rolled through and I had no internet connection most of the rest of the night--GASP! Anyway, a lot of them are of the little girls because I spent some time sitting with them. I've been trying to sit with them more often (when it's not raining) so that I can try to tame them some more. They are really sweet, and they do come over to me when I sit with them, even climb on my boots, but most of them still shy away when I reach out to pet them. The exception, to my surprise, is Perdita. She got a lot of attention when she was very small due to her leg issue, and she became very shy, I think because I was trying to move her leg around and get it stronger and it likely didn't feel too good. Yesterday, she was the only one that willingly stood still while I stroked her chest and petted her back. She even let me lift her onto my lap and made herself perfectly at home there until I finally had to move her to get up. Just like a Dorking should be.
Here she is being a total ham:
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And in my lap, before she sat down and got comfortable:
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Here are all my little girls! They always crowd right on over, but if I tried to reach out to them, they all backed away slowly.
Well, except Perdi.
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Here's a shot of Tessa. She's so pretty.
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Reinette
Unfortunately, she is losing her spots as she grows, but she's still just absolutely gorgeous!
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Perdita again. It amazes me how absolutely evil these birds can look if you get them from the right angle.
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Nadine, who remains queen of the baby yard. She's a BIG girl, too! You can kind of see it in the group picture above, but she dwarfs the other girls!
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And then there's this lug.
Looking at him now, it's hard to see why I ever thought he was a pullet. (P.S. You can see some of his shiny saddle feathers coming in on his back in this shot.)
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Oh yes, and the Broody Brigade, who were in with the pullets yesterday. Cazzie (who is still in broody mode in this shot) and Margie. Marka, who is not in this picture, is also part of the Brigade this round, and Rowena just had to be booted out of this pen because rather than reform, she decided to just brood in the corner anyway.
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About 10 minutes before the above picture, this is how I found Cazzie. They kicked all the bedding off the shelf here, and she was still sitting there and brooding.
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Here's a quick shot I took of the Black Copper Marans boys. The one in the background is the biter, but the one up front is a sweetie, and possible keeper even though he's not a Dorking. You can see he's not very coppery for a Black Copper, more of a cream color if anything.
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Here's Freema monopolizing the dust bath.
Nobody better mess!
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A little later, my sweet Orpington, Rooska, took a turn at it. Look at this sweet face!
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"Do you mind?! I'm trying to take a bath here!"
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Here's my perpetually elusive Easter-egger, Maggie. I can never get a good picture of her. Even this one turned out so dark her colors are all off!
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She Who Sleeps Standing Up will pose beautifully, though!
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Here's Flury Floofle-Poofles hamming it up for the camera, too.
This girl is having an internal battle with herself between her usual aloofness and her Cochin heritage of being a snuggie like Cazzie. She actually walks toward me sometimes now!
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Of course, she still has a reputation to keep, so she will deny all claims of sweetness.
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Abra has no problems accepting the sweetness that runs in her Cochin blood.
Look at this face! I adore her eyes!
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And finally, they don't come much sweeter than my precious, sweet Dorking, Elly.
Of course, a very tasty-looking leaf had her distracted in this shot.
She's missing tail feathers because when she went broody a while ago, she started to molt and then quit and went back to egg laying. Because that makes total sense to do.
But gosh, I just adore this bird no matter how crazy she is!
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So far, what I've got is that one of the Dark Dorking cockerels has a hip / back deformity, so he's off as I don't want him to pass that on to any offspring. I'm debating on Vander (?), as I'm so attached from nursing him back to health, but again, if his issues are genetic I don't want him to pass that on... And the more coppery Black Copper Marans has bitten me, so he's not likely to be a keeper. I actually was only going to decide from among the Dorkings, but the other Marans cockerel is such a sweetie so far that I've added him to the mix of possible keepers.
*cries like a baby*
It's a tough choice, because if I keep him then I have to figure out housing for him. The other little roosters beat up on him, so he's still with the pullets. If he can integrate into the flock without Reuben and Winter objecting, I suppose he could live there in peace as long as I make sure to separate him long in advance of hatching any eggs. Otherwise, he would have to be kept in a pen all on his own, and that just seems sad to me... It's something to think about.
