26 September 2008

Buckeyes Play Day in the Big Pen

Are these gals growing up or what? From their hatch date on August 6th they have grown steadily and are starting to look like real pullets!

So on days when we're home to deep an eye out for hawks (since these gals are the the perfect hawk-bait size right now) they get to romp with the big chickens for the day. After we've put the big rooster, Red, outside the pen, that is. Red has to go to a new home soon (or the soup pot...) He was a rooster that arrived as packing material with our guinea chicks. He's a handsome Americauna, but that's not what we raise around here now...


Here's everybody on the chick room doorstep. The love to scratch away the straw and take dust baths already.


These girls are serious hunters already.



The Buckeyes are supposed to be a deep red brown (like a Buckeye nut) and some of these are getting a nice deep color. Others are still pretty light. Eventually, we'll select for the good color and good egg production.



Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden! Things have been so busy with work and life I've had no time to post, but will give a monarch butterfly update soon.

(Yikes, I had to re-publish this post till I got the pics right. Usually I use Flickr, but was trying to use Blogger images. Tricky! I didn't know you had to choose, it seems between pics 400px wide OR 640 pics wide, OR, they don't show up! Live & Learn...may be going back to Flickr pics...)