We’ve headed to the Mount Forest Fur and Feather Fanciers Show about six times in the last three years — last weekend of April, first weekend of October we’re there — and haul home a motley flock of feathers every time.
As my brother so sagely observed: “You know, if you’d kept them alive, you’d have a flock of a hundred by now.”
Fortunately, we reside in different provinces and I’ll forget he said that when I see him this weekend.
So, yeah, we’ve had our problems with longevity but the point is, we love our chickens.
Take this old gal here. Her origins are Chilean, first bred by the Araucanian Indians and over time crossed with Central and North American breeds so that she can be called either an Araucana or Americana.
And thus she’s quite different from other birds. For starters, she’s rumpless.
Notice how she lacks an arc of feathers emanating from her tail area? Rumpless.
She also has ear-tufts and lays blue-shelled eggs. Fun!
I love these birds. They have big messy mops of feathers on their head that don’t appear to impede their vision.
The main breed is called Polish or Poland and these are a variety called gold-laced. They’re relatively mellow birds and lay smallish white eggs.
We picked up three hens and a rooster. Maybe in the spring we’ll hatch some chicks — baby polish chicks appear to sport a mohawk. Very cute!
And these vulturine creatures, known as guinea hens or guinea fowl, hail originally from Africa.
They’re wildly weird, have a sharp cackle that devolves to a repetitious shriek which, noted my Polish grandfather, was in fact a Polish profanity which translated to “dog’s blood.”
They’re supposedly quite tasty — shhhhhhhhh — we don’t eat our chickens — and their thick-shelled eggs are dark brown and shaped like tear-drops
They’re quite wild in that if I let them wander out of the coop they might choose to roost in some trees and not return. Not return in a viable form, I mean.
And they have a certain je ne sais quoi …
And last into the cart were a half-dozen of these sweet little things. These are buff (the colour) Cochins.
They’re very sweet tempered, with feathered legs and feet and are bushily feathered overall.
Cochins and the Polish are my favourite breeds but nothing beats the Cochins for personality.
In the summer they’ll wander over for a visit as I weed in the garden.
If they’ve run short of mash (feed with grain and crumbles) they’ll run up as I leave the house and walk along side, beady black eyes looking straight at mine.
“WHERE is our food, oh you with the travel mug?”
Anthropomorphism aside, they’re sweet little things.
All the chickens have distinct personalities and there’s a bona fide pecking order.
Family dynamics in the chicken yard. Now there’s a scholarly thesis topic!
The Country Mice 