Six Little Hens and the Perks of Barnyard Mixes

I would not think it possible, but I am writing tonight with the best news! I became pretty sure after spending some time in close study last week, but I am sure now. Petty has raised six little hens. Every single one of the babies is a girl, it seems! I am going to have to write that again. Every single one is a girl! Can you believe it? It’s like a chicken miracle!

The last one that I thought, perhaps, was the only boy turned out to be a girl too. Her comb developed a little early, so it was bigger than the others for a while. She is also a big girl, so that made me think maybe boy. I mean, you can’t get six girls when you have six baby chicks, so I thought this was definitely my one boy. Still, I did wonder because I never saw boy behavior. I saw very little chest bumping and very little aggressiveness.

The best part (and I can’t believe there is anything better than getting six little hens) is that this little girl is from Pumpkin. I don’t know if you remember Pumpkin, but she is the one who disappeared one summer for several weeks and showed up squawking outside of our bedroom window in the middle of the night.

I love Pumpkin. She’s chill and sweet and curious, and when I was choosing eggs for Petty to hatch this year, I thought I might try a Pumpkin egg. She is getting close to five years old, and we do not have any babies from her. I thought it would be so great to get one.

When this baby was born, I couldn’t tell she was a Pumpkin baby because she looked all Welsummer. If you look at the picture above, there are two little Welsummer babies with the stripes on their backs. She is the lighter one. She looked just like Rooster, but now that she’s older, I can see she is from our Wyandotte line. Pumpkin is from the line.

Our Wyandottes were beautiful and were the first ones I ever bought after our original Rhode Island Reds, but they all passed away over time. Well, one poor girl was a victim in one of our two hawk attacks we have had over the years. Gosh, that was rough.

I found a picture of two of our Wyandottes when they were little, so you could see them. Ours were Red-Laced Blue Wyandottes, and they were so beautiful. I miss them so much looking at this picture. They were Hecate, Hecate’s Sister, and Little Miss. Little Miss was a mama hen one time, and she was a pretty terrible mama. She had just one baby, and she was a very, very bossy mama. That poor baby! We still have that baby, S’more, but she lays very low out there in the flock.

As you might imagine, I am over the moon to see the history of our flock right here in this beautiful new member. She is so beautiful and very unique. She is orange from the Welsummer in her (Pumpkin is very orange and only looks like a Wyandotte in her comb and body shape), but you can so clearly see the Wyandotte in this new baby’s feather design. I can’t even believe this good genetic luck. We have four birds from our Wyandotte line–Pumpkin, S’more, Phoenix, and Circe–and none of them have the beautiful lace design of the Wyandottes. But here this one is in all of her glory. She is like a breed of her own–an Orange-Laced Gray Wyandotte.

Thankfully, because she was raised by Petty, she already likes me a lot. I’m determined to make her love me. I named her Annie. Isn’t she magnificent? I love barnyard mixes.