Bianco Turns 3

Bantam white leghorn hen Bianco turns 3 years old this month.

Speckles ('the boss') stands behind Bianco.

You can see Lexi's white tail sticking up in the background.

Bianco was going to be a 'show bird' before COVID hit.

She is a very noisy little hen.

Bianco is a timid hen and characteristically gets scared easily and runs away.

She runs like the roadrunner!

Bianco loves food. Here she is with a bowl of laying pallets on a sunny morning.

Bianco eats small pieces of lettuce. She's on the bottom

of the pecking order and often eats after the other hens.

Broody Coco

Coco went broody at the start of spring.

Here she sits all fluffed up on top of the coop nesting box.

Look at Coco's fluffed up fan tail!

Broody Coco stands on top of the Taj Mahal coop.

Bowed down and broody.

Little Miss Coco with attitude.

Coco slides down the coop roof.

Coco stands underneath the locked Taj Mahal coop.

Coco walks up the ramp wanting to access the nesting boxes.

Coop closed!

Clever Coco pecks on the closed coop door.

'Let me in! Let me in!' I can hear her say.

Lydia finally gives in and opens the coop door so Coco can sit on a nest.

On The Mat Again

 

Frenchy and Speckles stand on the door mat whilst Lexi looks on.

The girls hang out at the front door.

Lexi looks the other way whilst Frenchy and Speckles chill out on the mat.

Speckles makes herself comfortable and sits down.

On The Mat

How many hens can you fit on a door mat? 3!

Speckles preens her breast whilst standing on a door mat with Frenchy and Lexi.

Coco watches on.

Lexi and Frenchy stand side-by-side.

The hens like to take shelter on the door mat on rainy days.

Hens Hanging Out

Speckles and Lexi look at the camera whilst Frenchy pecks the ground.

(Left to right): Lexi, Frenchy and Speckles.

Check out the size difference between the two white leghorn hens eating

grass on the fenceline! Lexi is about 3-4 times bigger than Bianco!

Coco (left), Bianco (centre) and Frenchy (right) hang out. 

Tails up! Look at those fluffy butts!

A rare photo of Bianco and Lexi side-by-side.

The 5 hens hang out in the middle of the day under one of their favourite bushes.

All the hens are laying except Lexi. Frenchy laid the large dark brown

spotted egg at the top of the photo and Speckles laid the matt light brown

egg on the left. The white egg on the bottom left is Bianco's and the

very light green egg was produced by Coco.

Feed My Face

The 5 hens hang out their blue water bowl. Coco (the light grey hen)

is about to eat some pallets out of a round brown bowl.

Lexi and Frenchy feed their face on pallets

whilst little white Bianco and Coco watch.

Frenchy loves food and her nickname is 'French the Foodie'!

Frenchy takes a short break.

Half sisters Frenchy and Speckles feed their face.

Speckles eats solo on a wet, rainy day.

Speckles takes a short break.

Bianco walks up to a cauliflower stalk (vegetable food scraps).

Lexi is in the background.

Bianco loves munching on large vegetable food scraps.

Bianco eats the core of the cauliflower first.

My Third Chicken Painting

 

Lydia and some friends jumped at the opportunity to attend a "Paint Your Pet"

art workshop on Wednesday evening. It was a full class of 20 people.

Lydia chose a selfie photo to paint a portrait of Chickadee who died in

February 2020. Chickadee was a beautiful big Rhode Island Red hen.

Lydia chose to draw the outline of her painting on canvas using the grid method.

Two coats of background acrylic paint was applied to the canvas.

The first layers of colour was painted on the chicken outline.

Tools of a budding artist: the paint pallet, brushes and water. 

More layers of painted detail develop.

More shading was applied to the Chickadee painting. Lydia found the

hen's wattle and beak the hardest to paint, so the teacher helped out.

Lydia was proud of her painting efforts after a few hours of tuition.

The final painting. Chickadee's iris in her eye

was outlined using a black fine liner pen.