Earl Grey, Stud Muffin

Stud muffin Earl Grey being admired by one of the ladies.

Gosh can't beleive it's been so long since I posted. So much is going on with my job, it has been really crazy. Some weeks I have worked 60 hours, barely had time to sleep and feed birds let alone do anything else!

Here is my Easter egger boy, Earl Grey. His daddy was a Lavender Orpington and his mamma was an Easter egger. He has really filled out the past couple of months! You know he is so pretty I might just have to paint his picture!

look at that chest!

Check out that chest! That is a lot of meat on a fairly small bird. He gets that from the Orpington blood. I also love the coloring of his feathers on his chest.

Wide Load!

When he was younger he looked a bit narrow in the hips, but as he has grown he has filled in and is nearly as wide in the back as he is in the front.

Nice and wide, front to back!

Chickens should be wide through the back, for ease of laying eggs without problems. Some of my EE girls are pinched in the tail, so I'm hoping that their daughters from Earl will be wider than they are.

Remember back in March, when all those little chicks pictured at the top of this page hatched? Well here are some all grown up. There are 17 girls and about a dozen boys. The boys are destined for freezer camp and are still trying to grow some back and tail feathers; they are actually pretty ugly right now so I didn't take any pics of them today.

Lots of soft browns and golds, some of their mammas were Easter eggers, some were Welsummer or Welsummer/Leghorn crosses and this is the typical female coloration for those breeds. Some have the tiny pea comb of the Easter egger and clean faces, while some have beards and muffs. The pea comb is the best indicator that a hen will lay a blue egg. The gene for blue egg shell color is tightly linked to that for the pea comb. The girls that have single, regular combs could lay green or even brown. Only time will tell.

Love the beards & muffs!

Now those are some cheek poofs!

I just realized that there is a shadow from the chicken wire fence on that last girl! That's not a real pattern on her.

In other news I have managed a little of progress on the new chicken house. The first section is roofed and I should be able to get the second section roof done on my next days off. I lucked into some great pallets, a full 4x8 feet, exactly what I needed for the bottom part of the divider walls inside. Solid bottom walls are best to keep roosters from fighting with each other through a fence.