So very, very fluffy!

I’ve wanted to get a few broody hens for a while now.  I have had a few Black Sex-Links and even a Barred Rock or two go broody on me, but even those weren’t the best of mothers.  Of the twenty or so eggs that were under those hens last year, I think only eight or nine hatched and of those I only have three left.  And of course, two of those are roosters.  And not the brightest of roosters I might add.  Yesterday afternoon I saw one of them trying to breed Chop Suey, our Nigerian wether, who was just lying down in the sun minding his own business.

I was going to place an order for some more laying hens and a couple of breeds known for their tendency to go broody (Silkie, Partridge Rock, Wyandottes) but before I could decide on which ones to order I saw an ad in our local trading paper that someone was selling Silkie chickens.  The man selling them had quite the assortment of chickens, pigeons, doves and rabbits.  I’ve never seen so many different bird breeds in one person’s possession before.  So I left with four Silkies, three black and one blue speckled.  And I go them all for $20!  If I ordered them through the mail, they would have cost me $3.67 each (non-sexed) plus shipping, plus the fact that I’d have to keep them in a brooder in the house for a month or more. 

I was very happy.  He claimed that two of them were hens and even said if they turned out to be all roosters he would swap two of them out for hens. What a deal!