Signs of Spring

The four new Americauna pullets were picked up today.  Not wanting to order chicks, set up the brooder and raise them until they could go outside, I spotted a post on one of my Facebook Groups from a lady who offered to include your order in hers and you could pick up your day old chicks from her for cost or she would raise them to 8 weeks for a fee.  Wanting to keep a heritage flock of the Buffys, but missing the green eggs from the Olive Egger, I ordered 4 Americaunas from her and agreed to pay the fee to let her raise them til feathered and able to be outside.  By fall we should have green, blue or pink eggs.

Daughter and I used a roll of heavy mil plastic and stapled it to the sides of the chicken tractor, put the food and water inside and introduced them to their new temporary home.  In a few days, they will be released into the pen to run around and graze and get acquainted with the Buffys through the fence.  In 8 more weeks, once they can have the whole grain feed mixed with layer pellets, they will move to the coop.  I hope by then that one or more of the Buffys decide to get broody and sit a nest.  They will be moved to the brooder pen once they hatch which might expedite moving the Americaunas.  Daughter has decided that the largest one with the Retail Hawk like coloring and the dark head should be named Frightful after the Falcon in My Side of the Mountain.  The other three are still unnamed.  I don’t name birds that I know will eventually end up in the stew pot, so I don’t know if they will be named.

The Buffys got free range time while all of this was going on and every time I moved toward the house or back out toward the pens, I felt like the Pied Piper with the flock so close to my feet that I had to walk with a shuffle to keep from stepping on a hen.  They will eat out of my hand, but they don’t want to be petted.