Saturday 10 December 2011

Billy


Here's the latest addition to our araucana family, Billy. He's a lavender cockerel, about 7 months old, and after just two days in his new home he's already settling with five incubator hatched younger chicks. He replaces Red, to introduce a new bloodline into our flock. Billy is already showing the confident, strong character but gentle temperament that we find typical of a good araucana cockerel.



It's worth remembering that if a cockerel has a bad or aggressive nature then he can pass this trait down to all the hens' progeny, just as he can pass down any inherited weakness! One bad hen will produce one lot of poor chicks, but one bad cock bird can produce a whole flock full of poor chicks, so he needs to be selected with care!

As all of our araucana have descended from Red he will now be given a new harem of Maran and Light Sussex hens. As blue is a dominant gene their future progeny will produce khaki and olive green eggs respectably.

Sunday 4 December 2011