The door to my hoop coop was getting hard to close, so I raked debris from around the frame and found lots of earthworms. So did my chickens!
;)
I tried to get a picture but the hens insisted on checking out the freshly raked soil.
I had a bucket of debris, and decided to use it as a side...
Mine will be 6 weeks old on Monday...and I agree, they are cute. They're like a little gang.
Blue band took a wild strawberry from my fingers today, first time!
Purple band left, blue band front, LC right rear ("Little Chick"). One of my hens, Rahab, had similar black coloring on the neck...
They will go to a local auction when they get feisty. I got $5-10 each last year for six 3-month-old cockerels and another one sold a few weeks later for $30.
I don't think they were purchased for soup... bantams aren't very big!
But they sure were pretty! (May 2023)
The two I kept:
Joel...
Thanks, but I am fairly certain they're boys. And all of them have yellow shanks, a non-Standard trait for Speckled Sussex, so I don't want to keep any of them for future breeding. Bummer.
I have 12 more eggs incubating: 6 under broody Tamar and 6 in an incubator. I'm hoping some will turn out...
There's a place about an hour's drive from here, where I got my original chicks, but I was hoping to get a cockerel from another source, or even eggs. There aren't a lot of places to choose from, bantam Speckled Sussex are unusual.
The previous roo, Joel, was attentive to the girls, tidbitting them, watching over his girls...but he had a seizure and died in January. He had a good temperament.
Samuel never tidbitted the hens.
Thank you. That's so sweet.
:hugs
I'm actually hoping to introduce a different cockerel to the gene pool as all the Speckled Sussex chicks got the recessive and non-Standard yellow shanks, all were Samuel's. I will still keep any yellow shank pullets for eggs, but not for breeding.
I'm not a...
Samuel attacked the chicks twice in my presence, and was most likely the one that attacked a day old chick, two days in a row, leaving it unconscious on the floor of the run, with an open puncture wound behind the eye.
I removed him, permanently. And cried.
This evening...
Grapes have been consumed, now it's time to scratch and find spilled crumbles. The chicks are checking out some weeds I pulled and offered. And Martha's keeping the other hens on their toes.