Chicken Mutts

3 months since my last blog and now I'm back to my chicken ramblings.  Since I've posted last, we've had a pony and given up a pony after a month of owning it.  Her name was Shadow.  It was an impulse buy and now I have to be strict with my mantra.  If you have no purpose on the homestead, you don't belong here.  Anyway, that's not the main topic here.

I love my chicken mutts.  These recent pictures I took are from the spring chicks I hatched.  They are so beautiful and I don't know what breed their parents were as I didn't keep track of which rooster was breeding with which hen.  I wish I knew how to breed chickens so I can produce a completely new breed of chicken.

Maybe a Dorking cross

Rhode Island Red cross (maybe)

Can be a pure Black Australorp

Maybe a cross of Easter Egger and Black Australorp

On the left, must be a Black Australorp cross.  On the right, maybe Rhode Island Red with something else.

Relaxing inside the small coop on a cold mid-October

Now let me show you this original rooster (about 2 years old).  He was aggressive to me last summer but somehow he's changed.  I did show him who's the boss one day he was attacking me and I think he learned the lesson the hard way :) And I think he's more prone to attack me when I'm wearing the neon green rubber shoes.  If I'm wearing the black rubber boots, he leaves me alone.  Weird.  Or his change of attitude could also be due to him losing his tail feathers.  He feels much less of a cock now (no pun intended!).  Below is how he looks now.  I saved him from being butchered last month due to his change of attitude.  He is a very good guard rooster.  Very protective of his harem.

Someone stole his tail feathers ;)

Talking about more roosters, the rooster below is one of the young ones I saved from being butchered last month.  My husband specifically picked him because of his very unique nature.  I find his face and comb very weird...some sort of unusual cross of breeds.  Well he's not the top roo but he's not aggressive to me so I like him.  Will keep him.

Beautiful red head. He's gained quite a bit of weight

On a different note, we have 12 nest boxes inside the coop but some of the chickens prefer to use the cat litter boxes to lay eggs.  I feel it's too small for them but they're happy with it.