Bayeux

This is our rooster, Bayeux whom I thought to be a hen until last week he started crowing.  :(  Yes, I was in denial... I admit.  He looks very much like a rooster, and you must wonder how in the world I mistook him for a girl.  Well, last fall I ordered two Welsummer hens from the hatchery for the purpose of getting chocolate brown eggs.  Unfortunately one of them, Beatrix, was kidnapped (by a hawk maybe) when they were still very young.  So Bayeux was my only hope to obtain chocolate brown eggs!!  Oh well....  after all he is a very gentle and handsome rooster.  :)

Brownie

Our hens who joined us last summer have been laying an egg a day pretty regularly.  Some say chickens don't lay eggs much or stop laying during the winter months due to less daylight, but it doesn't seem to slow down our hens.  I have not bought eggs for a month or more and have constant supply of at least a half dozen in my refrigerator. 

This morning when we let the chickens out, Brownie disappeared into the back of our house.  She did have the look.  Oh no, it is not potty.  :)  Somehow she finds the west corner of our house to be the ideal nesting spot.  She fluffed up the pine needle mulch and started mumbling as if she were saying "it's coming... coming.... coming...." 

Then, here came a blue egg!  She is an Amraucana hen who lays blue/green eggs. 

Marisa with an egg

All our chickens are very friendly and let us handle them, but Brownie is a bit on the skittish side.  She is very fast when we try to catch her.  It is not a bad thing.  When some dogs attacked our chickens last summer she came out without a scratch, whereas one of our hens suffered several puncture wounds.  (Luckily we managed to nurse this hen to health, though.)  Daniel found Brownie hiding in the tall grass after a thorough search on our large field.  When he passed near her she walked out on her own like nothing had happened and surprised him. 

I wonder if she could make a good broody hen if we would stop stealing her eggs.