chicken goodness

You all know how much I just love my chickens. Unfortunately, the birds and critters around here also love my chickens and we are down to 4 big girls who are laying consistently an egg a day. It is so awesome to get our own eggs and every time I go to gather eggs I'm just as excited as I was the first time I went out there. You'd think I would start to find it a mundane task, but I don't, nor is feeding them or giving them water or watching them meander around the yard. I am definitely going to be a crazy old chicken lady when I grow up or maybe I already am. We decided a couple of months ago to buy some more babies and I've not been into blogging much, but now that I have a new camera I'm finding new inspiration...

These girls are only a few months old. We got 4 Rhode Island Reds and 4 Bantams. The Reds will be layers and the Bantams are small chickens that are just for fun.

Here are 2 of the RIR. They are lighter in color than the other RIR we have, but Jason's grandparents have some of these and their girls lay HUGE eggs.

I was going to order a couple of silkie bantams when I first started talking about getting more baby chicks and it turns out I think we got one from the Tractor Supply when we got our babies. This one is Black Jack (named after a character from the Lightening Thief), she doesn't much like us, but she has feathered feet, 5 toes, and the strangest feathers. The picture really doesn't make her look as weird as she actually does look, but she is the coolest looking bird. She isn't able to fly like the other birds and I'm guessing that has to do with the weird feathers and she walks funny because of her feathered feet. I'm totally enamored with her, but I think she just wishes I would leave her the heck alone. The kids are convinced she is a he and that we may have a rooster on our hands due to the 5 toes, but only time will still tell. Let's hope she is not a he because we won't be able to keep it if that turns out to be the case, but I can't wait to see what she/he is going to look like fully grown. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she turns out to look like a silkie and that she is a she!