Quackerjack

Quackerjack is such a cute name for a duck. I think that is for sure what we're calling him..so long as he is a male.

We're likely to get at least one different coloured egg, hopefully, Evelyn. Our Penedesenca, or Pene, as we call her, are said to lay dark, chocolate coloured eggs. I'm not certain on the others, but we will likely have mostly brown, and maybe some white.
Something gives me the impression we have a chick or two that lays blueish-lavender eggs, so who knows?

UndyingLight said:Quackerjack is such a cute name for a duck. I think that is for sure what we're calling him..so long as he is a male.

We're likely to get at least one different coloured egg, hopefully, Evelyn. Our Penedesenca, or Pene, as we call her, are said to lay dark, chocolate coloured eggs. I'm not certain on the others, but we will likely have mostly brown, and maybe some white.
Something gives me the impression we have a chick or two that lays blueish-lavender eggs, so who knows?

What fun!

Quackerjack is a great name!

Monty, If you pick them up a lot when they are very young they will allow being petted and carried around all their lives. I grew up taking care of chicks and ducks and I think some of them thought they were human. They followed me about when they were allowed to roam free and sat near the back door when I went inside. I never went out to do a chore without stopping and picking one up. They were Rhode Island Reds mostly.

We have been smothering the littlest babies to death, really. At any point in a day, we'll take a wool hat or something warm and take three or four chicks and have them in the hat with us. It is a concophany of noise for awhile, but they eventually all get snuggled in and sleep!


We had some ISA Reds about a year or so. They grew up with a lot of care, but maybe not as much smothering as these new chicks. The reds were super, super friendly!

I've loved having chickens..I've only got 6, but Dave doesn't eat eggs very often, so it's plenty for me and my baking.. Two of them are getting pretty old.. When I've had problems, I've looked for answers through the back yard chicken forum. One of my favorite chickens was a Buff Orpington... just a very sweet breed.


I enjoyed seeing your fall color too.. Beautiful country you live in!

Sherry ~ Too bad that it is too late to enter pictures into the NGA photo contest. That chicken picture with the lilac wisteria (I stand corrected) is just gorgeous!

evelyninthegarden said:Sherry ~ Too bad that it is too late to enter pictures into the NGA photo contest. That chicken picture with the lilac is just gorgeous!

\ I love chickens, but so do all the predators around here. I hope you'll enter that photo next year!

love the hen and the wisteria! contest worthy shot, sherry.

That's a great photo Sherry

back Sherry!

What a great photo, Sherry! I love it. I agree with the sentiment about not making the NGA photo contest.

My mom stalks backyard chickens. It seems like a great site; an insightful one too! I may join it one day.

We've gotten pretty lucky with the chickies (and our duck!) that we've gotten. The oldest three, and yes, I'll eventually take pictures of all of them once the undiversified few are figured out with names so that you and I all know who we're referencing, they're all really, really sweet, but they're standoffish too. They're all bred and are chicks of breeds, so they're not a specific breed. The oldest three, and the middle five came from our friend. We're thinking that two of the biggest chickens are males, and even then, they're so sweet. I'm not sold on one, who we have named Desperado, because Des (for short) acts JUST like a hen. Every mannerism is similar. Des and Gretel (the other presumed male) both have big combs and wattles, but Reba does not at all. Des and Gretel's features are fairly red, but not bright red.

We have four other chicks, three of which are so similar to the Asian Blue chicken breed. All three of them are super, super sweet, and so is their sister, Stevie. Stevie's white, and looks like Reba so far, but the other three aren't decipherable. Quackerjack, our duck is gray!

Unbeknownst to me, my family purchased nine more baby chicks when I was away for pet sitting (and I am back here again, pet sitting!). They are named breeds. As Sherry mentioned, she has buff Orpingtons, but we've got another type of Orpington called a "Lavender Orpington" and they're not registered as an official breed yet, and rare. We had three LO's from the nine chicks we got, and two of them did unfortunately pass away. The third one was always fiesty, and she survived! We went back to get replacements, and there were three Lavenders left, so instead of taking two, we took three and another chick called a Penedesenca, which also isn't registered (to my knowledge) and is also a rare species.

We've now got 11 baby chicks - four Lavender Orpingtons, three Rhode Island reds, one Delaware (also rare), one Sapphire Gem, one New Hampshire and one Penedesenca. Violet, the Sapphire Gem, and Penny the Penedesenca chick are the only names we've given the littles so far.

It's hard to decipher all that without pictures or nametags, but there will eventually be some!

The three oldest, the "teens" as we call them have finally been able to go out and spend time in a coop! When I come back home, I'll update about how they're doing. I find it really interesting that we've got three hesitant chickens, two presumed males and a female that are all so sweet and don't bite or claw us intentionally.

I miss having chickens...

Beautiful chicken photo, Sherry!

Wow, what a diverse collection, Monty.

Call us crazy, but we're actually able to handle 19 birds when all we ever had prior were three.

I love chickens. They're so awesome.

I have some pictures of our chickies!

Here are our three oldest chickens, probably around four months old now. Up top, (the red hen) is Reba. Bottom left is Gretel, and the bottom right is Desperado, or Des. Both Gretel and Des look like they may be roosters, but they're awfully sweet roosters!

They're all hesitant, but they're not aggressive towards us. That is good!


Here is the grouping of the other few chickens and ducklings we received from our friend. Only one not pictured of the eight is Reba. Stevie is the white chick, the black ones (once identified) are Luna, Stella and Eclipse, and then the gray duck, Quakerjack!

Five are still inside, and the three biggest chickens are residing outside now.

Here is our really sweet Delaware Red pullet we got from Rural King. Super sweet, but she doesn't have a name yet.


Here's the Delaware with the other sweetest little, a New Hampshire. She's super, super sweet and she is the only other chick who will sit in your lap nice and cozy.


This is Violet, our Sapphire Gem. She I believe was a pullet as well, so she will be female. She's one of two little chicks that are super aware and quite wild. She doesn't seem to freak out when we hold her though.


Here is all of the 11 littlest chicks. This is when they received their first outdoor adventure. I don't suppose they liked it! They were cold and Des was super mean to them. Des would run up and peck one of the littles even if they were just huddled in the corner.

Penny, the brown and darker brown chick is our other 'most alert' chick, but she doesn't like to be held. There's three Rhode Island reds, four Lavender Orpingtons, the Delaware, the New Hampsire, Penny and Violet.


That is all I have for now...I can't take more pictures of them until I am back home from pet sitting.

They are so cute!

I think so too.

Lestv said:They are so cute!