In mid august, i went to the local feather auction, sold a few duck trio's and various chickens. I bought 4 rir (rhode island red) chicks. They were really tiny, and i think too young to be away from a heat source or broody. But we bought the 4 orphans home. We lost 3, leaving one rather expensive hen. Lucky. She changed her feather colours to the normal red, except for a paler head, nowt wrong with that. But she got to the size of magpie and stopped. She is 2/3 the size of a small bantam i have. She has so far laid 2 eggs, the size of a malteser. So i expect she is about 16wks old. She has a healthy appetite and isnt easily bullied by the other hens. She's lovely and very funny. She gets to the food, not by squeezing in or jumping over, but by going under. Ever so comical. ps.I'd post pics but i can't get it to work.
Sorry Liz, don't agree, if I have a hen I want one that lays me an egg that I can get my spoon into at breakfast time. I mean the expense of buying/feeding/looking after them - the least they can do is lay you a decent egg! Now this is my idea of a Summer bred chick as to the RIR it may be better for both breed and breackfast if it was RIP but if you just like it as a pet then that is a different matter of course.
LOL!! Oh, I dont know, Waco, bit of a novelty chasing Malteser sized eggs round your plate of a morning! She sounds gorgeous C and cant wait to see some pics
Sad about the initial expense but a magpie sized hen surely won't cost much to feed.... worth it for the laughs! Malteser-sized boiled eggs- something new for the school lunch-boxes!
