Anyway, we had ordered 5 Barred Rock hens and 5 Buff Orpington hens.
A couple of months have passed, and even though we are pretty sure we have 5 Barred Rock hens, we are still living with some mystery.
We seem to have...
- One Buff Orp with a pale comb and wattle. I will say this is a hen. See exhibit A.
- One Buff Orp with a red comb and wattle. I'm actually thinking this is a hen, too. Exhibit B.
- THREE that seem to be some other breed altogether--even though our first thought was they were just male Buff Orps. But these things have to be some other chicken. Rhode Island Red? New Hampshire Red? SOMETHING red, anyway. With greenish-black tail feathers. Exhibit C.
But the next question is: are ALL of the red ones males? Or just one or two?
I think only one of them crows in the morning, and there is one that seems more territorial than the other two, but who knows? They look an awful lot alike.
Stakes are high, because we're not even sure we want ONE male around our layers (Norah is creeped out by the idea of eating fertilized eggs). Any extra males will be going for a brief stay at our friend Shawnee's house before an extended visit to Freezer Camp.
Exhibit A: Henny Buff Orpington.
Exhibit B: Another Buff Orpington hen?
Exhibit C: Mystery Bird or Bird-Dude.
1 comment:
ADDENDUM: The consensus over on backyardchickens.com is that only Exhibit A is a hen; that all of the others--including all three red ones--are cockerels. Umph. -Rob
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