This month marks one year since we got our first chickens, a motley assortment of uncertain heritage. We still have most of them, including Hawk, still the sweetest hen of all. She is the only chicken that seems to prefer the company of people to other chickens. It is hard to take her portrait because she always moves in so close to the camera when you get close to her. 
The first thing every morning, I take a bowl of vegetable trimmings and leftovers out to the hens. This is the highlight of their day and they get so excited. Just before Cadence left for Mexico, she and Sara made a chocolate-beet cake. I took the chickens a bowl of beautiful, magenta beet juice, leftover from pureeing the beets. Such disappointed hens! It turns out they do not really care for beet juice. Too bad --I was curious to see whether beets affect the color of the yolks.
Speckles, a black and white hen that came with the broiler order last summer, and one of the two sneaky black roosters who escaped harvest last fall took up residence with the cows in the loafing shed all winter. They prefered the cold to the crowd in the coop, I guess. They seem very happy to have sunnier days and have been venturing out into the pasture a bit.
5 comments:
Sounds like you have some happy chickens. It would definitely be interesting to see what beet juice does to the colouring.
Well, I have a choice to make. I would love to have a cuddly chicke like Hawk, but my favorites are actually the black & white chicken with the black rooster. I didn't know chickens don't like beet juice.
Hmm, you're giving me ides for chicken designs on plates..!!
Speckles and her rooster make a nice couple, i expect they may have some chicklets soon ?
i suspect if you soaked some oats or seed in the beet juice and allowed it to dry before feeding them, they might have colored eggs shells ...
I do hope some of my chickens raise chicks this spring - but not for at least couple months when it is a more nurturing temperature. This morning it was 5 below zero.
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