Our Brahmas
I like to see chickens from the kitchen window while I'm cooking or washing up. Some of my original bantams escaped and roamed free in the garden. They didn't go far and were always there when I went out of the back door - just in case I'd got food for them. However at bed time they roosted up in the trees and we couldn't get them in. There wasn't chance of getting their eggs either as they were always too well hidden. Every so often one of them would turn up with a chicks in tow. Survival was never as good as planned hatchings as weather and predators took their toll. Many went to friends and I still have a rather handsome cockerel, but Ginger and the two little black hens are now no more.
I wanted a breed that could roam about in the daytime but which I could catch and fasten up at night. Brahmas are far too heavy to fly and I have always liked their beetle brows and regal bearing. They may look stern but they are very friendly and always come running (more of a lolloping gallop really) when they see me. I've had Banana, Ra and Ma since January. Ravi came to join them a few weeks later. He is really funny, the way he walks. He goose steps. Possibly to make sure he doesn't tread on his leg feathers.
They have cleared all the weeds from the gravel in the kitchen garden so it
looks tidier than it has done for months. However now the weeds are gone they
have started on my Tarragon, Aubrietia and Primroses. With that in mind I let
them into the garden in the hope the gravel there would be magically weeded too.
However it has rained for the past two days and they don't like the wet. They
just sit in the garage and wait for me to take the food to them.
I haven't had any eggs yet, but I look with hopeful expectation every morning.
Because they are so big they take a long time to mature. Dutch pullets would be
laying by now, while my new girls are still growing. They are as tall as the
dog. In fact Ravi towers over Max when he stands up tall.
I tried incubating the first eggs they layed for me, but none were fertile so we just ate the subsequent ones. We thought they had stopped laying like the rest of our chickens in August, but I then 'lost' one of the hens. I had a good search round and eventually found her sitting on a clutch of eggs in the leaf compost pile. Five chicks hatched on the 20th September - two males and three females.
There were three with dark heads and a dark patch on its back and two with pale cheeks and a paler striped back. I will check if I get this dimorphism with later hatches.You can also see the feathering on their legs at this early stage, though it is just down at this age
The two pictures below show the chicks at a month old.
The female, next to her mother, already has stripy feathers coming all over, while the male has lots of black feathers especially on the wings. Their mother tired of them after about 6 weeks and went back to the original coop with Ravi and the other two original hens. The chicks are now well feathered enough to keep themselves and each other warm. At the rate they are growing though I will soon need to make them a larger house. At 4 weeks they were about a quarter adult size and now they are two months old they are about half adult size. Guess what they will be getting for Christmas!