Buff the Leghorn – what a difference in two months!

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 2 March 2011 in chickens | 0 comments

This was Buff, our Leghorn chicken, at the end of December:

This is her now:

I hadn’t noticed how much her combs & wattles had grown until I saw the first picture in Google Image search while looking for leghorn pics so see if they all get such a floppy ‘do. They were tiny back then!

As I’ve muttered/complained about a number of times now, Buff hasn’t started laying yet. She was supposed to be around POL when we got her in November, which puts her at about seven months now so she should be kicking them out. She’s supposed to lay white eggs and since the rest lay brown ones, I think we’ll notice when she does start laying. We do get some paler eggs (for example, we got one today which made the producer bwark so loudly that I heard it up here!) which could be hers if she’s not a pure leghorn, but if that’s the case, it’s strange that in all the days of getting six eggs (from a total of seven girls), we’ve not had a single day of seven.

Her floppy wattle (which would be a good name for a band) and comb are redder on some days than others, but she’s not displaying any other signs of even thinking about squeezing one out – she runs away when I go near her rather than dropping, and the only time I see her in the nest box is when I’ve grabbed her (for a health check/powdering) and she goes in there to hide & complain. She’s really flighty compared to the others and I accidentally, literally, scared the poop out of her the other day by appearing on the path behind the run behind where she was perched. Squawk! Poop! Ran to the other side of the run.

From pictures I’ve seen, her comb & wattle aren’t that abnormally large for a girl leghorn – but possibly not one as young as her. And it’s apparently not uncommon for some leghorns to hold it in until they’re nine months old or so – especially over winter. But I have this fear – which I’ve alluded to before – that she’s a girl-who-thinks-she’s-a-boy or actually a boy, but aside from paranoia and her slightly louder voice, I’ve not seen anything to suggest that. At a guess, she’s very near the bottom of the pecking order and I’ve not seen her try anything on with any of the girls — until recently, she’s been on the other side of the run from them at all time.

Perhaps her low status in the team is inhibiting her. Perhaps her flightiness means she’s too anxious to get down to it. Perhaps she’s decided that egg laying isn’t for her. I’ll keep an eye on her but any advice/suggestions would be gratefully received!

About Buff, our buff Leghorn chicken

Posted by louisa on Thursday 30 December 2010 in chickens | 0 comments

Here are a few fun facts about Buff, the optical illusion-tastic chicken:

She’s a pure breed – a Leghorn – a buff coloured one hence the unimaginative name.

She’s about 21 weeks old at the moment but since she hit point of lay at the coldest, darkest part of the year, she’s not actually started laying yet. When she does, she’ll lay about 280 white eggs each year.

She’s the most flighty of our birds (the rest of bred-to-be-calm hybrids) and by far the smallest – this photo shows the difference in size between her and one of the ISAs (Ms Blue – admittedly they are older though).

Her best friend in the coop is Ginger, the Black Rock who looks like she’s had ginger highlights put into her feathers. When they first arrived, they were the bravest of the new ones so stuck together to explore. Now the other Black Rock, Blacks, is bravest of them but these two still stick together most of the time. (She’s in the background of the photo above too.)

When she first moved in, she used to eat out of my hand – very timid pecking – but now she doesn’t at all. She’s the only girl who doesn’t run towards me when I enter the run to say hello and check my clothing for hidden caches of corn. But she didn’t seem to mind me stalking her for a photo session this morning.

The other chickens don’t like it when I’m trying to take her photo though: look at me, mum, look at me!!

Optical Illusion

Posted by louisa on Thursday 30 December 2010 in chickens | 2 comments

I had a lie in this morning. Not only is it the do-nothing week between Christmas and New Year, I’m self-employed so my boss is very, very understanding when I want to stay in bed rather than start work on time. It’s also been well above freezing for the last few days so I’ve not had to worry about the chickens & their frozen-solid drinkers for the first time in a month.

Or did I have to worry about the chickens after all?

When I finally woke up, I did so with the air of getting up, weeing, getting a cup of tea and returning to bed for a leisurely morning. Then I looked out of the bedroom window and noticed that Buff, the Buff Leghorn, seemed to be outside the chicken run – in the airlock space between the run and the rest of the garden. The run is enclosed as completely as it can be (some rats have made incursions over winter – we’ll see them as soon as the soil is workable), with a full (wire) roof to stop them escaping or foxes/cats/dogs jumping in. There was no way she could have got out. Or was there?

Still blurry eyed, I went to a different window – she still seemed to be outside, stood on top of the metal food dustbin. There is an old patio chair of a similar height just on the inside of the run’s wire but I couldn’t see any wire between me and her. I began to panic. They’d be no weeing or teaing for me!

I dressed as quickly as possible and ran down through the house, gathering John along the way. He asked my first questions: “how did she get out? how are you going to get her back in?” She’s considerably flightier than the others so doesn’t usually let me within a few feet of her, let alone pick her up.

How long had she been out there? Overnight? Unprotected and cold? Had a fox got in and made an exit? Was she hurt? Were the others hurt? The questions raced through my mind as fast as I raced through the house.

She was still there when we reached the first level of the garden – standing on one leg, a little chilly, looking a little lost. I ran faster.

Then as I hit the bottom of the steps – the two flights of stairs between the top of the garden and their coop – the perspective changed and she was clearly perfectly comfortably perched on the patio chair inside the wire.

Bloomin’ chickens.