portraits

Posted by marne on October 3, 2006 in farm | 10 comments

Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a good picture of a chicken? It’s just about impossible. I tried setting up a chick photography studio this morning, and this is the best I could do:

The first one is our Free Exotic Chick! I have no idea what breed she is, I’ll have to try some chicken message boards and see if I can find out. She’s a little nervous, and is not fond of being picked up. Unfortunetely for her, she is too darn cute, and must be picked up occasionally. The bottom picture is a Barred Rock chick. We have six of these little girls. They like to peck at my hand and arm, and are really curious about everything.

All the chicks are growing like crazy and tonight I have to rig up a new home for them using two big boxes. I had one box, but it’s not as big as I thought it was, and it’s just not enough room for them. Look at all those wing feathers! They keep trying to escape from the washtub, and a couple of them have actually made it out. Lucky for us, Reggie could sense that all was not right behind the laundry room door earlier today when one escaped, and he kept whining at Mr. Lucy, and then running over to the door. Finally Mr. Lucy was able to interpret the very anxious corgi-speak, and sure enough, when he opened the door there was a little chick running around free.

I have to confess to being a very bad chicken mother. I have a favorite chick:

She’s an Araucana, and she has a little teddy bear face. We keep calling her fuzzy face. Whenever I lower my hand into their tub she steps right into it and doesn’t mind at all when I pick her up. She’s happy to sit on my shoulder and peck at my hair, or just curl up in my hand and sleep. She likes to walk up and down my arm, and is just generally curious about everything that goes on around her. Isn’t she cute? I’m going to have to come up with a better name than fuzzy face though. Any suggestions?