Chickens!

So, I'm sure someone is wondering why I chose the title that I did.  Frizzle has kinda been an alias of mine for a few years now, and I freakin LOVE chickens.  They are probably my favorite animals.  At home, I have quite a few chickens, though 6 of which are roosters that are going to be butchered maybe this week.  Here is a list of my chickens.  Name, sex, breed, age, egg color.  Picture if I have one.

Butterball, female, Buff Orphinton, 3 yrs, brown/pink

Baldina, female, Black Australorp, 3 yrs, brown/pink

Speckles, female, Buff Orphinton X Silver Laced Wyandotte, 2 1/2 yrs, pink

Moonshine, male, Easter Egger X (Speckles), 1/2 yr

• Puff, male, Easter Egger X Ancona, 2 1/2 yrs
• Ash, female, Easter Egger X Black Star, 2 1/2 yrs, green
• Selena, female, Ancona X Silver Laced Wyandotte, 2 1/2 yrs, white
• Cassidy, female, (Puff) X Black Minorca, 1/2 yr, white/crème

Baldina and Speckles are extremely special to me because they are such good brooders.  Baldina is probably the best, this summer while I was away at camp, she got a hold of 13ish eggs, each layed on a different day.  This meant that when it came to hatching the eggs, it was staggered, and took an additional 10+ days since the first chick hatched out.  Often, hens will give up if the hatching process takes too long.  Speckles and Baldina hatched out a total of 15 chicks this summer, though only 6 made it through the summer because of my dog, and there was one fatality due to a Kestrel.  Yeah, that sucked.  What sucked worse was that of the 6 that survived, only ONE was a female.  fml.  Moonshine was a very pretty rooster that hatched out, so all is not lost.  The other four are on the list for the chopping block.

When I have a house of my own someday, I fully intend to raise chickens as well.  My long-term goals with my chickens (besides just enjoying them) is that I want a fairly uniform duel purpose flock that is well suited for the cold (fluffy, with small combs) as well as being colors that blend fairly well with the landscape.  I would like some Frizzled chickens because I like that feather type, and maybe some rare and unusual breeds that I could show.  But for that, I will have to wait until I am older.