Morehens Disease, But With Dignity...And Rationalization

Our Chickam eggs are in the incubator, and due to hatch May 31st, +/- a day or so. Tonight I'll candle the eggs to see how many embryos we have...or ANY, given the 5 hour power outage we had two days into incubation (because it just isn't Chickam without some kind of damned drama).

But to our suprise, one of our local feed stores got in a batch of heritage breeds...most of which are are on the Endangered List. Yes, some American chicken breeds are in danger of extinction, check out this dismayingly long list: Livestock Conservancy Conservation Priority List.

 

So I'm rationalizing today's chick purchase as 'doing our part to save the breed'.

It's not because they are SO cute and fluffy. It's not.

Well, okay, maybe.

 

Anyway, here's today's Morehens Disease outbreak. The feed store had helpful one-page info  sheets. These chicks hatched 5/14, so are 5 days old today (no names yet, I'll update when we name them). And yes, the prices wouldn't normally be this outrageous. Production breed chicks go for $2 to $4 each...but thanks to these being special breeds...and $10 a dozen egg prices driving the demand for backyard chickens...oh, well. Hopefully all these are hens.

 

I may run a livestream on these guys starting tomorrow (the 20th)...and as two of our larger breed hens have gone broody, they might get a mama starting on the 24th, the plan being to add our hatched chicks to the group under her on the 31st. I've never tried that before, so if things go south with her rejecting the new chicks, mama would get bounced back out to the barnyard.

 

Supernova, a drama llama Mottled Java, Critically Endangered:

 

Mayhem (the larger chick) and Havoc (the smaller one), Russian Orloffs, Threatented: We got two, because Orloffs are seriously awesome! The smaller one is struggling a bit, so is getting round the clock assistance in the form of icky Nutri-Drench drops (what the heck do I need with sleep, anyway?):

  

 

Moose, a Salmon Faverolle, Watch:

Favs are also famously awesome clowns--even more so than any other chicken. Check this out: Peaches Is Loud 

 

 

 

Favs are feather footed, fluffy headed...and have 5 toes. They look like an AI generated chicken with all those toes, and ours hasn't yet quite worked out what to do with hers.

And because we can't lay off the ridiculously fat, fluffy eating machine breeds, THREE Orpingtons.

Rainbow, a Blue English Orpington:

 

Zigzag, a Jubilee Orpington:

 

Doughnut, a Chocolate Orpington:

Hard to see in the pics, but if you look them up online, they honest to Pete are the color of milk chocolate!

That's it.

For now.

But next week the feed store is getting some Prairie Bluebells. 

Update, 5/26

...and I have pretty much zero self-control.

So today the kid and I picked up a gray Prairie Bluebell chick, her name is Enzyme! They lay blue eggs! This one yelled a LOT during picture time, and is giving me some quality stink eye. But she does have lovely gray eyes, BTW:

 

 And a Bielefelder chick, named Huntress. She came with the leg band--a good thing because she looks a lot like the Orloffs:

 

 

Both of these girls are a new breed to us, and neither is an endangered breed. I was after a brown Prairie Bluebell, because I love that Creole coloring--but all they had was gray. But the Bielefelder has that Creole coloring, so I got it after all!

 

See how I rationalized that second chick?