Frizzles & Sizzles

 My paint Sizzle rooster and a bantam white cochin hen. My rooster is the offspring of a Paint Silkie rooster and bantam white cochin hen. I like the way he looks and he is the head honcho of my bantam flock of sizzles.

 He knows he's handsome and struts his stuff proudly.

 This is one of my Paint Silkie hens. She's only a few months old here. Her sire was a Paint Silkie and her mama was a white Silkie I bought from Murray MacMurray hatchery, so I don't know more about her ( mama ) than that she is a white Silkie. I am still reading up and learning about 'paint' genetics but the breeding of the rooster and several white Silkie hens has produced quite a few paints for me and I am happy with them thus far. ( Going to keep the black hen from this crossing to see what she hatched out after being bred to her paint half-brother.)

 Here is one of my white bantam frizzled cochins. She is a good mama and hatched a passel of little paint sizzles. I am having so much fun with these cute chickens !  (MY Sizzles are chickens I get from hatching eggs produced by the breeding of my Silkies with Bantam Frizzled Cochins.)

 Mama frizzle with her chicks.

 Look at this crazy Sizzle. She has a few spots and wacky feathers. Love her !

I am learning a lot raising these chickens . I am set on producing Sizzles with spots ( paint) and Silkie skin coloring, blue / black. I have a few that already fit this description. My next project in the poultry pens will be to evaluate all my Silkies and Sizzles and narrow my flock down to what I want to keep and breed. Always something to do in the poultry pens !

Paint Sizzles ~ I Hope !

Sizzle chicks are hatching ! Yesterday morning I checked under this frizzled white bantam cochin to discover the first egg of her clutch had hatched. A tiny still wet from the egg chick was under her, and she was very angry with me for disturbing her and the chick.

I am kind of excited about these chicks because they are the chicks from her breeding to my Paint Silkie rooster. The next few days will tell , will I have Paint Sizzles or not ?

Mr. Fancy Pants

 This is Mr. Fancy Pants. He is a Sizzle. That means one of his parents was a Silkie chicken, and the other a Bantam Frizzled White Cochin. He is a sight to behold! As I said in an earlier post, he might be frilly, but he is all rooster.

 This is one of his gals and he watches over her protectively as she scratches and pecks for bugs and worms. He gets very excited if another rooster approaches her.

 Isn't she pretty? I often think these chickens are the poodles of the chicken world.

 Mr. Fancy Pants also has some Silkie girlfriends.

 Here he is with 2 of them.

 The chickens are clucking busybodies too. They love to line up near the sheep water trough to see what's goin' on over ( or under) the fence. The sheep like to gawk at the chickens too.

Boy, when you're feeling down, or need some entertainment, nothing beats watching the antics of a happy flock of chickens, or sheep. Mr. Fancy Pants and his gals make watching my chickens even more fun !

It's That Broody Time Of The Year ~Spring !

 It's that broody time of the year again, Spring! All my poultry, including the ducks have laid many eggs and now are determined to sit on their eggs until they hatch. The Midget White turkey Tom tries to protect his setting hens from me as I enter their pen for feeding & watering. I have to keep a big bucket between us so I don't get hurt. Tom turkeys can be pretty dangerous when they feel they need to protect their hens.

 Here are the 5 Midget White hens. 2 of them are setting now...

 ...and here are the eggs. Well, some of them.

 This White Orpington hen went broody on me and was trying to hatch out wooden eggs because I kept gathering all the freshly laid eggs she settled on. Since she seemed determined to hatch out eggs I put turkey eggs under her. Turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch versus the 21 days for chicken eggs.  She finally did hatch a turkey egg, I'll show you her babies in another post.

 This is Mr. Fancy Pants. He is a Bantam White Cochin and Silkie cross. He is one frilly rooster, but don't let the frills fool you, he is ALL rooster and he too takes his job of protecting the broody hens very seriously.

 This Silkie hen, her sister, and another bantam hen are softly clucking, snuggling, warming, and dreaming over 3 large clutches of bantam eggs. I can't wait to see what they bring out of the chicken shed in a few days.

 My white ring-necked doves are all in a dither when I enter their pen. They too have babies and eggs they want to protect, but being doves, they just go all a-flutter.

 Here are 2 baby doves just beginning to fly around. They still need their parents to feed them. Did you know baby doves are fed "milk" by both their mothers & fathers?

 Another wee little dove peeking through the straw at me, hoping I don't see him.

 But I do see him. Really, I cannot tell for sure what sex the doves are until I observe their behavior. Neither can the experts. Fortunately the doves can tell the girls and boys apart!

 This baby dove is getting his tail feathers.

This is such a wondrous time of the year. Not only do I have poultry hatching out and new lambs to watch, but the wild birds have nests all around our property and in some of our bird-houses. There are big gloppy plops of frog eggs stuck on branches in our pond, the honey bees are very busy in all the flowers , the hummingbirds are buzzing like kamikaze pilots around the sugar water feeders. Spring, don't you just love this time of year ?