Chickens?

[SemaviLady]

If you answered that you would like to have chickens...
What breeds would you have if you could choose?

I would probably always have Easter Eggers, Light Brahmas and maybe one or two other breeds. Most of mine have been Easter Egg chickens which are really mutts with some (incompletely) dominant genes that make them such interesting chickens to have.

The major attractions of muttly Easter Eggers are that they are easy to find (some hatcheries sell mixed quality "Americaunas" which are really Easter Eggers), wonderful 'no two alike' appearances (some will have beards or ear muffs, some have both, or not). They can make such a wonderful, colorful flock and a main attraction is their colorful eggs! Easter eggers lay eggs that range from pale green or pale bluish, to shades of green, through shades of olive, to pinkish khaki! When you collect the eggs, your basket can be quite colorful!

Extra eggs are easy to give to friends who will be amazed at the colors. I used to give them away at work. This isn't my picture, but if you use pine shavings or straw in the nests, the eggs will nice and clean unless your hens get all muddy.

I've had Lakenvelders, Silkies, Wyandottes, Light Brahma, Buff Orpingtons, Polish birds and other breeds. Of the non Easter Eggers, I love the Light Brahmas. They are colored similar to Lakenvelders but are very large, densely feathered and even have feathered legs -- like a Clydesdale horse.


Here's an Easter Egger and Lakenvelder with a clutch of chicks (there were about two dozen babies!). The dad was a Banty rooster that adopted us!

At the time, we had only ever gotten pullets (hens) and avoided roosters. But one of our Easter Eggers disappeared for a month. When she came back, she brought home a boy friend. He was a mongrel, a small partridge colored bantam. Skittish with people (we never could get very close to him) he was ever so sweet. Our hens (there were a couple dozen, assorted breeds) loved him. If I brought out some melon rinds and kitchen scraps for the hens, he'd come over and check out the goodies and call the hens to come check out the goods. They would come running and all enjoy the treats.

An especially memorable vignette I have of him... I had some cantaloupes that were over ripe. Too mushy and grainy to me. Fermenting a little too, lol.


I sliced them open and took them out to the flock. After putting it all down, the hens clustered around and gorged away.

The rooster came to one of the melon halves that was off to the side... and picked out some seeds from the center, he placed the seeds and the bit of membrane that held them together, on the ground next to the melon half. He called one of the hens from the group over -- One came, she checked out the seeds he had laid out. She started chowing down. He'd watch her eat, then reach into the melon half and take out more seeds as she got close to finishing the ones laid out, and he' lay more seeds on the ground for the hen. He did this over and over, fondly watching the hen enjoy the melon seeds.

Ripe bananas? If I had more than I cared to freeze for banana bread, I'd lay the bananas out and he'd peel them and break off bits and call one hen over and feed her. It's interesting that with several hens all chowing down, one would respond and he'd give exclusive attention to that one for the while.

Isn't that sweet? NOT all roosters are like this! I'm so glad this boy adopted us for a while. He lived with us for about 6 more years, then one day he disappeared from the flock. We think he may have gone off to find his resting place. We never did get to pet him. He had spurs that were over three inches long!