Chicken Fun

We still have chicks. They are adolescent, all acne and braces and surly bedroom-door-slamming.

Witness the sass:



They won't even make eye contact. After all we do for them. ::sniff::

Regardless, we enjoy their immature antics because we know they'll outgrow them. Like when they freak out if you make a loud noise, like clearing your throat. Or blinking. What I mean is, we hope they'll outgrow them.

I'm not gonna hold it against them if they don't, though. There's a reason why they're called "chicken" after all.

We aren't sure if all the chicks we have are female. See, we ordered 25 pullets, but we got two "free rare" (meaning "anything goes") chicks. So there were 27 in the box when we got them. Of those, four died. Of the four that died, none was of the "free" variety.

Following are pictures of some of the surviving birds we paid money for.

Rhode Island Red:



(Incidentally, she's standing on top of the sole waterer for the chickens. This behavior is both cute and endearing -- and oh, so popular among the flock. Unfortunately, it also means we have to flush out their water supply many more times a day to get rid of all the feces floating in it.)

Silver Polish:



Golden Polish:



This could be an Egyptian Fayoumis:



All of the above are known in the scientific poultry community as Gallus domesticus.

And here is one of the "free rare" ones:



He looks like Big Bird, doesn't he? We think he's a cockerel. He's been the biggest, strongest, and most aggressive of our flock since the beginning. Cockerel or pullet, though, we have no earthly idea what kind of chicken he is. So we're calling him Big Bird for simplicity. (Gallus bigbirdius being the scientific name.)