They are 22 and 23 and half week old chickens now!

You can see a few of Rooster's former, long neck feathers still attached. His neck feathers molted for some reason and they are growing back in nicely, but I assume they will be long like his feathers on his saddle. What a handsome Black Australorp rooster he may live to be if he behaves!

  
  Our chickens are obviously old now. Four are twenty two and half weeks and the other sixteen are twenty three and a half weeks old.

  Here are some more photos. Enjoy!

  This is Dora The Explorer at 23 & 1/2 weeks old. She is a Golden Comet. And she is the one who pushes boundaries with no fear (In case you missed my other blog about Dora, lol).

  This Golden Comet is Goldie. As you can see she has a lovely, kind of red-gold glow. She is getting more confident and brave too. But she is has a pretty good temperament.

  As you can see our Black Australorp rooster (the one 'oops!' in our order from the hatchery we used) has grown a lot since the last time he was photographed. His name used to be Queenie, but you can see how that no longer applies to HIM. He has no name just yet. I just refer to him as Rooster.

  And sharing the second photo with Rooster is one of our Ameraucanas (we shall see when she lays eggs if she is a true Ameraucana or not, we bought both of ours at the feed store we go to). Her name is Mrs. Hawk. She is gorgeous though, at least I think so! She is one of the 22 week old chickens.

  This time Rooster is standing with one of his sisters, a Black Australorp who isn't named. But look at the breast that Rooster is aquiring. He is starting to look mighty yum-yum. I joked about naming him Yum-Yum. When I see him I think about how he is looking more and more tempting to eat! There are a couple of his sisters starting to look the same delicious way, but I want to see how they lay eggs first, before I even think of that. But the rooster... we weren't wanting a rooster... but we'll see.

  This is a picture of sweet Snowy, another Golden comet. Some have speculated she is a he because of the amount of white/cream color on her. But she was our second chicken to start laying. I assure you that she is our most 'girlie' chicken we have in the flock. She has such a sweetness about her. She likes attention and prefers to sit on my shoulder more than my lap. 

 
  This is our other Ameraucana on the right. Her name is Mrs Owl. She is more social with me than Mrs. Hawk is. She is quite curious too. We love that she looks rather exotic!

 
  This is one of our Cherry Eggers. 23 weeks old. A very nice red color, and are great layers like the Golden Comets, though they way more territorial and not as happy-go-lucky. If they weren't such great layers I might be tempted to have fewer than the five I have. But they do lend that nice red color to the flock. 

 
  In these two pictures above, you see our Speckled Sussex's, Roadrunner and Friendly. (I know which is which by their tails, lol, otherwise they could be identical twins.) They are only twenty two weeks old, and see how speckled they are! I was worried I would have to wait until they molted to get this many speckles. Not!


  We love our Speckled Sussex, Friendly. She really does like hanging out with, and greeting the humans. She is a lot like Snowy in personality. But a little more shy about letting us catch her. The speckled sisters aren't laying yet. But they are an old English breed and should take longer, like the Black Australorps.

 I was trying to get a shot so you can see how huge this Black Australorp hen is (the one on the ramp). She isn't headless, she is just grooming herself under her wing, on her other side. But you can sure see her girth and her huge amount of downy type feathers. And of course, that's Mrs. Hawk again in the background.

  Mrs Owl, looking curious as she often does, lol. She looks mean, but is really not. She is hard to catch though. Rooster has not made a bride of either of the Ameraucanas yet. They won't let him, yet.... the Sussex's are the same way.

Mrs. Hawk, Ameraucana

Some of the flock.

Notice how much larger Rooster (Black Australorp) is than little Snowy and the others!

Ah, yes, this is Hagatha. Our most bullying alpha hen. She, of course, is one of the Cherry Eggers. Good thing she lays eggs so nicely!

And this Golden Comet's name is Sassy. She is the biter and pecker of the Comets. She really likes to be loved though, she is just a stinker and gets nervous or jealous easy. She will bite me though if I reach out toward her. But if we pick her up, she is very docile.
 

In this picture of Friendly, you can see the bluish green sheen in the dark parts of her feathers.

 

  This Cherry Egger in the middle is Little Red. For a while we wondered if she would be a small rooster because of her comb being more rooster shaped and she developed it sooner than her sisters. But then I saw her lay an egg. I was so glad! She's a nice looking little red hen, isn't she? She is more independant too, than the other chickens. She doesn't like them eating too close to her, and she doesn't mind grazing further off from the gang sometimes. But she doesn't really cause any trouble if they stay out of her 'space', lol. But for some funny reason I like her. I can't tell you why.




I just can't get enough shots of Rooster, can I?

This is Fluffy Butt, I mean Fluffy! Lol, it really is hard not to name her the former. She is our Golden Comet that is the lightest shade except for snowy. You will read more on her shortly. She will be in my next post.

Mrs. Owl looking attentive next to Goldie. Snowy is grooming herself, and Rooster is watching his ladies of course!