July Days, continued.

We're taking a break from being outside and eating popsicles. Rosie is watching the Sword in the Stone while she snacks.

We played outside for awhile. Rosie didn't want me to take her picture today, she specifically told me to bring my camera out and she brought her plastic princess camera out. Then we took pictures of the chicks and a couple chickens.

Shelf Head is huge, and he now crows...a lot. I plan on keeping him unless someone specifically complains.

This is one of my favorites. Rosie calls her Silver, don't ask why because I have no clue. She does have silver legs, at least. Several people asked me what breed these are on a previous post. They are Appenzeller Spitzhaubens. I LOVE them. They're such a great breed, and unique looking too.

This is Gerri. She suddenly has huge wattles! What in the world? She's a Crevecoeur. My other Crevecoeur pullet is older than Gerri, already laying eggs a couple times a week, and she does not have hardly any wattles at all. But I am 100% Gerri is a pullet. (Otherwise her name was going to be Jerry. Again, Rosie randomly assigned her that name one day.)

These are my 9 chicks. Three of them are buff brahma/easter egger crosses and four of them are salmon faverolle/easter egger crosses. The big one in the middle is Mr. Big, he's the first chick I ever hatched out. He's a pure buff brahma. (I'm not for certain he is actually a rooster, but I don't want to get my hopes up that he's a pullet only to be disappointed.)

I'm afraid almost all of my baby chicks are roosters. Aside from Mr. Big who is 8 weeks old, the babies are only 4 weeks old and they already have very blazing red combs! Oh no! How could I have hatched 8 little roosters?

Look at that comb! Egads, that is a rooster for certain. This is a brahma/easter egger chick.

The other two brahma/easter egger chicks look like this:

They are more barred, where as the first one is solid brown/red with some black. Interesting. I love seeing what the mixes look like as they feather out.

This is one of the faverolle/easter egger chicks.

They are really cute. They're all feathering out pretty much the same, a dusty brown with some black marks and a little bit of cream on the wing tips. They all have green easter egger legs, and some of them have five toes. See the funny fifth toe in the picture? Aside from a few breeds, most chickens have four toes. This chick looks like he has little black horns, haha!

Abby and Hank could really care less about the chickens. The only time Abby pays attention to them is if she sees a chance to eat their mash, or if they are in danger she will protect them. She likes to lay out in the grass, and they will lay next to her. Sometimes she gives them an affectionante lick and a bit of drool while wagging her big fat tail. Hank just knows that I will shake the coffee can of bolts and screws if he so much as mouths one feather, so he makes it a point to not even make eye contact with a bird. When we first got them, he thought they were play toys, but The Can put a stop to that. If you so much as utter the words, "Dog, don't make me get The Can," he will run and hide behind the grill.