Frankie Baby

Frankie and Gloria - baby and mum.

I've mentioned a couple of times about how we had some 'unplanned' baby chickens [thanks to our 'unplanned' rooster, George], and the mother hen of the group, Gloria started sitting on eggs. Well back in about mid-May, three of those eggs hatched and out came some tiny chicks. Two blacks and one yellow. Sadly, the two blacks both didn't make it. I think they both didn't survive the cold. And to be honest, we had no idea what to do with them - we are by no means chicken breeders! Basically we left mother hen to do her thing, and just made sure she had a sheltered spot. Anyway, it is now roughly 12 weeks later, and the little yellow chick has blossomed into a lovely looking... chicken!

Naturally we have fingers and toes crossed that Frankie is a girl, and doesn't start crowing and become Frank. So we make sure to call her 'her', like that's going to make all the difference. We couldn't give away the first rooster, goodness knows we don't need two of them out there. Anyway, she has grown into a fine looking bird, in my opinion. Her mum Gloria is part silky, and Frankie actually seems to have more of the silky look about her than Gloria does. Although Gloria still has more foot feathers than Frankie. Proud dad George is nowhere to be seen in Frankie's looks. And we have no idea what the colouring is, as both mum and dad are black chickens. 

Strutting like mum.

Isn't she pretty? She's just started making proper cluck cluck noises instead of baby cheep cheep noises. And she's officially part of the group now, albeit the lowest ranking member. The whole time Gloria was sitting on her eggs and then growing Frankie up, the other three were pretty much a roaming gang of three. Poor old Gloria and Frankie got a bit hen-pecked when they started venturing outside and joining the others. And now the five of them all cruise around together. In some ways we're back where we started, we originally bought 5 bantams [alleged bantams might I add] at the market and lost a little white chicken, Sylvia, so it's sort of like going full circle. Sort of. 

Chickens. I am learning so much about chickens. These images are from a few days ago when Gloria and Frankie got stuck on our front porch when the rain started, so they waited it out. One thing I do not love about chickens is having chicken poo in places where I do not want to find chicken poo. Like the front porch. I see more jute webbing and prayer flags happening in the near future. Oh and the cutest thing is that Frankie still hops in the laying box with Gloria when she sits. Gloria really needs to put her foot down about that. She's a good mum, that Gloria.