Monday, December 28, 2015

A New Christmas Flock

My husband is wonderful. He drives me utterly insane, but he is wonderful. Early last week, on one of the swaps I am on on Facebook, I found a guy with a whole pile of true Ameraucanas, lovely blacks and lavenders. Lavender may not be a recognized color, but it is very popular and pretty! So I set up an appointment with him for Saturday, and off we went! 



The guy had so many birds. Spitzhaubens, Speckled Sussex, 4 different color groups of Ameraucans, some mutt cross breed that was part Araucana with the huge ear tufts. He was the craziest looking rooster I had ever seen but so cool looking in all of his goofiness. I selected 2 beautiful full muffed lavender hens, and a black rooster so deeply colored he shimmered and his feathers had the most amazing green luster. 



As we were leaving I was checking my cell to get his number, and stumbled on another ad he had posted, for a flock of Bearded Belgian D'Anvers that he was selling with their coop. Since I wasn't sure how Jade would feel about an entire flock of bantams...and since he wanted to sell the whole group with their coop, which was way out of our spendability, I said nothing. While Paul and I were discussing which hens and rooster would be going home with us, Jade and Peggy were falling in love with the little wild banties. We had taken "some" extra cash, but we just really didn't want or need the coop. So the guy gave us a too good to refuse deal, 20 bucks for 5 pairs of bantams. And a real nice pet taxi box to take them home in. It is a big one so basically we paid for half of the birds and a beautiful crate. 



So our flock grew by over a dozen. I have a trio of Ameraucanas to breed from, with the hope he will have a few hens left this weekend, as we will gladly go back for more. We are delighted with the looks and health of the birds. Once the Ameraucanas are quarantined, until they have their own large coop, will go in with my younger cochins, which are the same age. The D'Anvers will stay in the small brooder box for now, it is plenty big enough for them, and will allow me to gather their eggs neatly, and soon we will have an incubator to start hatching chicks to raise and sell. 


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