Meet The Ladies!

Well, a couple of times over the past two weeks I have come home to find one or two chickens out of the run. It really isn’t a huge deal because of their flock nature they won’t roam past the garden because they want to stay close to the rest of the girls, but I don’t want them out for stray dogs or cats or the occasional fox to happen upon them and leave me with less chickens. To find out if it is the same chicken that is the escape artist I wanted to band them with leg bands so I could easily identify them. I started to look for spiral leg bands which are safe and effective, but after two trips to Tractor Supply and Country Max I was still empty handed. After a little research on a few backyard chicken  websites I found that a lot of people were using the color velcro cable ties and that they were safe and easily adjustable as the chickens grew, so a quick trip to Walmart and BAM! I had homemade legbands. I just put them on all of my younger chickens as the three old hens are readily distinguishable. On with the introductions:

CHIRPY

She is A Bird’s hen and always has been. When I originally got my first 5 chickens, Chirpy was one of them. She is a Barred Rock and the friendliest of all the chickens, ever since she was a chick she would walk up to A Bird and hop on her legs to sit and  chat.  She is one of my favorites. Right now she is going through her yearly molt so she is looking a little rough with her feathers coming back in.

Betsy

Betsy is a year two hen that I traded our rooster Crazy Mack for since I can’t have a rooster in the village. She is another Barred Rock, she is more stand offish, and a bit bossy with the other girls. She is definitely Chirpy’s right hand girl, she is second in command and will only defer to Chirpy otherwise she is chasing the other hens away from treats.

Gossie

This is Gossie and poor Gossie is going through molt pretty bad. All of her head feathers have fallen out and new clean pin feathers are starting to come in but until all of her new feathers come in she is going to look a little worse for wear. She is a black Australorp and very friendly. She will routinely come up and stare at you to see if you are going to give her a treat. She is a very good layer (when she isn’t molting) and lays big brown eggs just about every day of the year.

Silver – Black Band

Silver is one of this year’s chicks, she was hatched out on June 1st. She is a Silver Laced Wyandotte and she is one mean, miserable big bad hen, just look at the face. For the first few weeks, I thought she might be a rooster because she would charge me and peck me anytime I got close to her. Needless to say she is my least favorite hen. She seems to be pecking her way to 3rd on the hierarchy of top hen. At least she is pretty to look at.

LACE – Blue Band

Lace is Silver’s hatch mate, she is slightly smaller than Silver and much nicer. She is actually a bit skittish, she will come up to you and stand at the back of the flock waiting her turn for a treat but if you move too quickly she takes off running in any direction as long as it is away from you.

Sophia – Purple Band

Sophia is one of four Buckeyes and named after The Golden Girls. I wanted to get a heritage or endangered breed of chicken, so I went with Buckeyes. Sophia and her sisters were hatched on May 30th and she is pretty mellow except if you are pestering her then she can get pretty vocal.

Dorothy – Yellow Band

Dorothy is the biggest of the Golden Girls and she is very mellow. She is friendly but tends to go off on her own and does her own thing.

Blanche – Blue Band

Blanche is the friendliest of the four and the most “treat hungry”. I normally feed all the girls layer crumble but when it gets cold, I feed them scratch grains as a treat. It has cracked corn, and oats so it takes them longer to digest it so it heats up their body temperature and keeps them warmer in the cooler weather. Blanche will follow me around and cluck until I spread some scratch out for them, then she pecks contently until she has had her fill.

Rose – Black Band

Rose is the last of the Golden Girls and the flightiest. She is friendly and a good chicken until anything catches her attention then she is off and running to find out if she can eat it. So she spends the majority of the time running back and forth from this to that, but overall she seems to be a pretty good hen.

So that’s it, those are the girls. Now I just need to wait to see who flies the coop, and then that lucky girl might be the winner of a wing clipping.

Wish me luck!