- Joined
- Sep 9, 2010
- Messages
- 310
My 5 hens are some of the best pets I've ever kept. I rasied them from day-olds and they simply adore attention. They are almost 10 months old. One of mine will even pur like a cat when scratched on the right spot. The lay me 4-5 eggs a day. I have 3 rhode island reds (Brown eggs) and 2 easter eggers. (Pretty mutts with blue egg laying gene, both lay seafoam green eggs) The have a unique pecking order, deciding who gets what and how much scolding one gets. (Ranks: Nugget- flock leader, Runt Runt- flock manager, Big Red- food supplier, Hawk- Care taker, Meko - despised) Nugget, my biggests girl and also flock leader takes on rooster duties besides crowing. She looks out for the others, diciplines, and shares all the tasty morsels she finds with her sisters. She'll make a deep beeping noise when she finds an insect, to call the others. She then decides who gets it, by giving the look of death to whoever she doesn't want to give it too. She will not eat insects herself, and only eats a little bit of other treats. Runt Runt loves humans, and diciplines the others whenever they step out of order and fight with Nugget. Big red is interesting, she's a GREAT forager and any goodies found are quickly taken from her, and she doesn't seem to mind. Hawk is my very pretty easter egger. She quite tame and is a big baby. Meko is mine. She's the lowest of the pecking order and is picked on quite often. She does not eat from the feeder when the others do. She rarely is given insects, nor is she good at finding them. Her feathers are also torn from constant beatings. But I make up for that by giving her attention and hand-feeding her mealworms. They interact with squirrels too, and it's quite hilarious, my duck also flocks with them. (Her sibling died, and she was then human imprinted, she follows the chickens whenever she's bored now) Does anyone else have chickens?