Our latest acquisition, a little red hen and her six chicks. Apparently they have never seen a pear before.
A few months back we moved Imogen’s mum’s chickens to her brother’s house, where we hoped they would settle in with his other chickens. We wanted to replace them with some less “feral” chickens, and to that end went to a large poultry sale on Saturday. It was a zoo, and we left chicken-less. Plan B was asking a friend if he wanted to sell any of his birds. He offered us the above “package deal”.
The hen is an ISA Brown (ISA stands for Institut de Sélection Animale), which are a hybred between a Rhode Island White and a Rhode Island Red, bred specifically for maximum egg production (about 300 eggs per year). Since she has black tail feathers, I suspect a little something else slipped in her linage somewhere. The father of the chicks was a White Leghorn, and given the chicks’ current coloring I think they’ll eventually range in color from buff to speckled red.
Since we only keep ducks and chickens for their eggs, we’re hoping that at least half the chicks are hens. Any boys will be passed along to non-vegetarian family members.