Chickens

Our chicken population is steadily decreasing, since as a production flock they are almost completely hopeless. We did have a wide selection of pure-bred hens for a while, but either they weren't suited to our conditions, or they came from faulty flocks (when buying fertile eggs, parents unseen, one can never be completely sure). We presume we now have only the hardy individuals left, which suits us fine. Now we just need to sort out which of those are the best egg-layers. We sell free-range eggs to people who want them, although our distance from markets which are prepared to pay well enough to make it worth our while, makes that a dead-end proposition - another reason for the decreasing flock size.

Adolescent Buff Orpingtons. Visit the FeatherSite Orpington Page for more pictures of this breed in this and other colours.	Pekin Bantam chick. This creature will have grown into a "ball of feathers". I'm not sure where it is now. It might still be here, but it also may be one of the ones which took to roosting at night under the ute and was transported to who-knows-where one early morning, when Stephan went to work.


This guy is a Silver Duckwing Leghorn rooster. His "wife" was a very ordinary brown hen. From the eggs we originally bought, we hatched one hen chick and this cockerel. We bred quite a few chicks from them, ate the boys, sold the girls.	A Light Sussex rooster. We like this breed, they look really lovely strutting about the place with their black neck and tail feathers. The hens look very tidy, with less tail.