At home: Flying feathers sorted!

Sams chicks are now about 7 days old. They have grown their flying feathers and also at the same time, some idea of what they are going to look like. Our pen of chickens, is a rare breed mixture of Cochins, French Marans, Blue bells, Pekins, Light sussex bantams x Aracanas, as well as dutch and Belgium breeds.

I find that if you are not so purist about your breeding, you can develop some special mixture breeds. For example, last year we bred blue egg laying sussex birds by crossing with an arcana. We also bred a light lavender colour hen by crossing a blue bell with a white wyandotte. This little chick was fathered it seems by a little Dutch Bantam, judging by his unusual colours. Its only at this state that you can really see what you have got, since the feathers never match the fluff. Every day is a nice surprise! x

PS: you can see this chick when it first hatched here