Chick Update

Time for the two week photo update on the four oldest chicks in the batch of 16 (hatched periodically over a month's time) that is getting ready to be moved out of a brooder and into a pen. This batch is primarily offspring of Howl, the white non molter, and the BBR Phoenix hens shown down in the "Beginning" post.  However, there are also several straight Phoenix, with BBR's, golds, and one lone silver pullet. The BBR's had a tendency towards green legs and longer feathers as you can see in BBRC1, the cockerel that I've been following in the photo updates.  This batch of chicks is running at 10 cockerels, 5 pullets, and one that I'm unsure of but leaning towards a pullet.

For the non molters, I'm less worried about leg color at this point since there will be no way to avoid having white legs if I breed back to Howl. But I'm keeping the best stock of slate legged and green legged birds for possible use later in getting the legs back to type.

First we have Spike (BBRC1) who looks like a skinny man wearing a fancy jacket way too big for him.

 Next is the Blue Red Cockerel (BRC1) At this stage, all of these related birds seem to have a roundish look to them, while the straight Phoenix are all slimmer and smaller. I expect they will grow out of it, the hens were long and slim, and the rooster as well.

The Blue Silver Cockerel (BSC1) is getting lots of juvenile red splotches. He's also the dominant rooster and will probably not be a keeper. But we'll see.

I'm starting to call this hen Football, because she is shaped like one. Just kind of a blob of a chicken at this point, not looking at all like either parent. She's very difficult to get a picture of, she just plops down and rests, looking alert is not on her agenda.

Slightly younger blue red hen (BRH2). Her tailfeathers are going through an odd stage where the tips are curling upright a small amount. A couple of the birds in this batch are like that, all are the same cross.