Meet the Chickens - The Old Girls

Because I've written a lot of blog articles about our chickens, I decided it was time that you actually got to "meet" them.  We have 11 chickens in all.  There are 3 "old" girls, remnants of the first flock of six chickens we bought three years ago.  Then, there are 4 "young" girls, the Rhode Island Red chickens we bought last spring.  Finally, there are 4 "little" girls, the new chicks we bought in March of this year.

First, I'll introduce our "old" girls.  These are the first chickens we ever owned.  We bought them from our local Atwoods store in the spring of 2012.  We purchased 6 chickens in all - 3 New Hampshire Reds and 3 yellow sex-linked.  Sex-linked chickens are crosses between two purebred chickens.  They are called "sex-linked" because you can tell the difference between the males and females when they are very small.  Unfortunately, we have lost two of the New Hampshire Reds and one of the yellow sex-linked over the years, leaving us with three old girls.  I thought it fitting to introduce these ladies first..... "age before beauty" if you will.

The New Hampshire Red we have left is "Gertrude".  Bear in mind that I take no responsibility for these names.  Tom named them.  I was still working at the time and he spent much more time observing them during the day and was first to observe the distinguishing factors by which we tell them apart.  This is Gertrude.

Gertrude's claim to fame is that she is the only one of the chickens who has figured out how to fly over the fence.  So, if we let them out into the uncovered pen, we have to be on the look-out for Gertrude escaping.  It is odd, but she will go for days without flying over the fence, then she will get out several days in a row.  

Notice in the picture above, she appears to be missing some tail feathers.  That's because the neighbor's Great Pyrenees dog found her out one time while we were gone and was apparently trying to herd her back to the pen when she panicked, got caught in the fence and lost some tail feathers in the melee that ensued.  In the end, she extricated herself and is none the worse for wear.

Next, we have Gloria.  She has white feathers that encircle her neck like a necklace. 

She appears to be going through a soft "molt" in this picture.  Chickens lose their old worn feathers ever so often and grow new ones.  This process is called molting.  A soft molt is where a few feathers at a time are lost.  A hard molt is when the feathers drop out very quickly but don't come back for a while thus causing the chicken to have bald spots on their body.

Finally, we have Blondie.  Blondie is a friendly, curious chicken.

Last fall, she discovered me planting a couple of trees in the yard and came over to investigate.  While inspecting the soil I was digging up, she discovered lots of worms and grubs which she immediately gobbled up.  Ever since then, when she sees me digging in the garden, she comes to help me.  

We've come a long way since that spring day in 2012 when we brought these girls home.  Most of what we've learned has been from trial and error, reading books and checking Internet sites dedicated to chicken-keeping.  These hens deserve medals for sticking with us this far!