And yet still none laying!
So our latest addition – we were given a 12 week old lavender Araucana boy by a lovely new friend we met through the Canberra Backyard Poultry Club.
Meet Craig, possibly the most friendly and chilled out chicken ever. He loves being around people and happily will follow us around begging to be picked up. He doesn’t even mind the toddler trying. In fact, if I don’t pick him up, he occasionally just hops up himself and perches on my hip or thigh until I lift him to my shoulder!
Craig in the kitchen
Roosting on a chair (check out our yummy home made pizza dinner...mmm)
We had always planned on getting an Araucana to breed from to introduce the blue egg laying gene. Araucana (girls at least) lay blue eggs, which is a dominant gene, so cross bred chicks fathered by Craig will all lay blue (or possibly green, if their mother lays brown eggs). So I’m really looking forward to getting the breeding program started now!
We’ve moved Craig and Red into the big pen because there wasn’t really enough room in the little pen for five, and we didn’t want Craig to be the only newbie, so Red went back in too. We’re also hoping that having Red and Craig together now while they are still young (neither are crowing yet) will mean they will get along better when they are older.
Red and Craig with girls in the background
It seems to be working so far, Red and Craig have teamed up and formed a bit of a bachelor club. Since they are the smallest and newest in the pen, the others are all picking on them so they seem to have decided that they are better off sticking together. Hopefully their bachelor friendship will last into adulthood, though we will probably need to separate them eventually.
Best buddies
This has got to be it though! No more chickens (at least until we start breeding…)
Posted by Alice on Feb 22, 2011 at 10:31 am
I keep checking back to see if your hens have started laying yet!…How are they going and are you getting any eggs?
Cheers,
Alice
Posted by suburbanite farm on Feb 22, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Not yet, sigh… But they all had a respiratory infection over the past week and a half, and were on antibiotics, so that will probably have delayed them a little. Plus now we are hoping they don’t lay for another week or so because of the withholding period for the antibiotics. The light sussexes must be getting close though – their wattles are getting big and red. They must be about 25 weeks now, yeah? Do you remember when they hatched?
Posted by Chicken swap « suburbanite farm on Jul 4, 2011 at 3:22 pm
[…] our new girl, Lavinia, has moved down to the little pen (or pens I guess) with Craig, Thyme and Imogen (Juliet’s sister). […]
Posted by Roll Call Winter ’12 « suburbanite farm on Jun 25, 2012 at 6:11 pm
[…] Craig’s Pen we have “Craig” (obviously), “Thyme” and newcomer “Gypsy”. “Gypsy” is […]
Posted by Rooster logistics « suburbanite farm on Sep 4, 2012 at 6:16 pm
[…] currently have three (eek) roosters: two Araucanas (father and son Craig and Hugh) and a Light Sussex (Clock). We also don’t count any cockerels we may have growing out […]