Meet Betsy (the black one), Hazel (black and white) and Ginger (the reddish one.)These pictures were taken in May of this year. Amber at Berlin's Whimsy (see link in daily reads list on sidebar) did a post about her chickens getting clean in the dirt. I thought I would share these. If you were to come across chickens having their dust baths and had never seen them before you might worry. You might think they had been poisoned or gone insane. It can be a little disturbing until you realize they are blissed out. Ginger and Hazel are now living on a farm in Blue River. Ginger turned out to be a rooster and Hazel grew to be about twice as big as Betsy. Betsy is small and these things were Amazons compared to her. They insisted on trying to get under her to roost at night. It was funny to watch, but Betsy quickly grew tired of it. They learned to fear her. When Ginger started crowing, we had to find a new home for him. Since Hazel and Betsy did not get on together and as Hazel was devoted to Ginger we found a home for them in the country. Betsy is back to being an only chicken which she actually seems to enjoy. I spend a lot of time each day after work with her as I work in the garden or in my studio. I would like to try to get another banty to keep her company and share body heat during the winter.
4 comments:
a lone chicken sounds so sad-but if you are her flock I guess she has it pretty good.
We had a Lucy that turned out to be a Luciano. He was magnificent but we had to remove him from the flock because it would have drawn attention to our illegal flock. (They're not illegal where we are now, but this was in Santa Rosa.)
I know, I spent all of last year worrying about her being solo. Where she had been living she was bottom of the pecking order. She was constantly being picked by all of the other hens to the point of having no feathers on her head and starting to scab. She took up refuge in our friend Dave's shop. He didn't want her pooping on everything so Jack brought her home. We attempted to bring another Banty from Dave's over for her. "Molly" just would not let up, poor Betsy just took it. We thought it would get better, then we thought Betsy would get killed. We took Molly back. I spend a lot of time with her as does Jack. I'd like to try some Bantam eggs for her to hatch. Our three legged cat Skitty (not a threat) hangs out with her. She is very human socialized, at my birthday party she made the rounds of people. She was quite the belle of the ball.
I would love to meet her sometime! I love banties. Three of my favorite chickens in the world were Molly (not yours!), Madeline, and George. They were banty Cochens.
Our old cat (the one that died this winter) liked to stalk our Santa Rosa flock and he'd posture like a wild killer until one of the hens would turn her eyes on him at which point he'd sit down casually to groom himself as though that's what he was doing all along...or run like hell into the house. We never worried about cats with the chickens once they were full grown.
If Betsy managed to hatch a few eggs she'd be on the top of the pecking order...right? But even if she didn't, she really sounds happier just hanging out with you. Poor girl. I hate to see hens pecked like that. I'm always a sucker for the underdog.
I didn't see there was another comment. She would definitely be top chicken. I just haven't found any one with fertilized banty eggs. She is broody right now, which is sad/funny. I turf her out each day and always feel like I am breaking her little heart so I usually let her get back on the empty nest to while away the day. I bring her food and water and spiders. I am an enabler I guess.
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