ever more silkies

so here are the buff silkies we got a few weeks ago. the mama is the big one in the foreground & to the left.

these babies are about 2 months old now, maybe a week more. they are pure bred (like wakaba & kenshin, the white silkie hens now new mamas). unfortunately their dad was killed before we got them. he was a buff too, which is obvious given that all the kids are buffs. remember--silkie daughters look like their dads & silkie sons look like their moms when the parents are different colors.

everyone has been really noisy lately. dogs, goats, chickens, guineas.....the cats are the least annoying vocally. sometimes you just want to sleep for longer than 15 mins at a time....but that's life on a little farm! the best is still the crowing contests between the roosters. oh! and Holly (white leghorn chicken-holocaust survivor)--who makes honking sounds more than clucks--taught the one guinea hen (Nephthys) to make her honks underneath the window in the morning as well. this is the "GET UP NOW AND FEED US!!!" ritual. which the goats soon join in with their bleeting if one of us doesn't get out their soon enough. and then maybe the roosters will start if we try to push staying in bed too long. though right now the windows are still open.....

those new here should see posts made in july for pics of our other animals

all right--that's enough for today

metamorphosis

just for some fun here are before & after pics of Suki, the grey silkie/cochin hen who transformed over the summer into a rooster....david thinks he looks like a dinosaur

basically he grew his waddle & comb, and got thick neck feathers with whitish flecks mixed in with the grey....and it was he not Gobo who makes the weird crow that sounds like he's dying or being hurt or something

you can also see Gobo in the 'before' pic--he was killed, as i've already posted about, by the neighbor's spastic dog

do you like the dismantled building in that same pic? made for some good roosting while being taken down. ahhhh....cleaning up other people's trash

the newest trio

ok here are some pics of the 2 bantam roosters and the andalusian hen we got oh about a month ago. the black & white rooster is Isildur. the white one is The Phantom Bantam. and the grey hen is Elvira. they all like to roost in the beetle-eaten plum tree. [they originally slept in the main coop, but then one day decided on the tree instead. we can't reach them in the tree, so we just let them do what they want. see note below] Isildur & Phantom fluff out their feathers before sleeping. i thought it was cute.

each rooster's crow is different, just as each hen's cluck is different. spend enough time around your chickens, & you can identify them by call.

[and for those wondering about these chicks' safety at night, we also own 2 puppy komondors, almost 5 months old now and getting huge. they will eventually be well over 100 lbs...and they bark at everything--even the planes flying by tens of thousands of feet above us...and sleep out by the plum tree & the chicken pens...when full-grown they will be able to take out coyotes even. komondors are a livestock protection breed, and though they have not often been used with chickens, we find they do all right with grown chickens (babies who find their way out of the pens are more like squeak-toys to the pups....so the babies & their mamas are secured in pens until the peeps grow up. which of course protects them from flying predators too. oh and there is also a guinea hen that sleeps in the tree with them, and she makes a raucous honking anytime anything gets too near her. when our guinea flock matures, it will be interesting. also, only these few flying chickens roost in the trees, silkies can't fly so they prefer the pen. though if something got into the pen ever, they would have next to no chance of getting away. at least those tree-roosting can fly away. that's if anything can sneak past the dogs, which is not that likely]

more of the cute & fluffy .....and insane

here is a bird's eye view of kenshin and her babies, born one a day last tues-fri. it went white, buff, white, buff. it's funny to listen to eggs peeping, which they do a few days before they hatch. that's how the mama hen knows when to stop turning the eggs.


anyway--wakaba's babies look the same, except for only 1 white & 3 buffs...and they're a lot bigger than kenshin's. since they came out of the chicken house aug. 29th....well, the oldest was probably born 4 days prior to that, which makes him about 2 weeks older. peeps grow fast. i love it when they stretch their legs & wings. they do one side at a time, arcing a wing & a leg backwards like they're trying to do ballet.

.........

and please don't leave advertisement's as your comments....especially for loans, i mean, like i would ever borrow electronic money from a private institution (this includes all banks of course--the federal part of "federal reserve" is designed to be misleading, and neither it nor any bank is part of the government...in fact, the federal reserve mints money quite cheaply actually, then slaps an enormous interest rate onto it when they "loan" it to the goverment....but i digress). i think if this person had actually read my site they could have figured out i'm not all for most of the societal systems the old u.s. of a. & the world for that matter have forced upon us....a financial system based on extreme debt is ludicrous anyhow. and beginning the advertisement with some garbled propaganda about hurricane katrina.....ummmmmm like sympathy would make me want to get a mortgage loan. besides, i don't think the powers that be really wanted any help going down south anyway....i guess they really just wanted to use the catastrophe (& their subsequent lame excuses for lack of preventive safety measures like evacuation...or any number of other true forms of aid that they are highly capable of) as a reason for getting the ball rolling on martial law. yeah you do know that the constitution doesn't exist under martial law and can only be reinstated by those who ordered martial law in the first place, right? at least all this has postponed our puppet government's invasion of a certain country.

but aren't gas prices great? so most government vehicles run off of natural gas. funny, huh? i wonder if those prices went up too?

i wish people would learn that big brother really doesn't love you and doesn't want what is best for you.....look at new orleans

so you have to take your life into your own hands, learn to survive on your own with as little as possible, & know when to stay & when to flee certain destruction...don't trust uncle sam to be their for you, unless you are uncle sam. and even then you might want to watch your back.

chickens are cool though!!!

note on links

two new links have appeared....that is, two groups listed by their acronyms....check them out......i've known about SRS for a while but just recently got around to really investigating them.....CTM is pretty fun exploration & experimentation too

both intrigue, amuse, & inspire...at least me

maybe you as well?