The Brahmas!

Here are my biggest fluffy-butts. These are the Light Brahmas - Raven, Cheesecake, and Mila. They were all ordered from Murray McMurray Hatchery, and had some other Brahmas with them, but each died off of one thing or another. These girls are the remainders.





This is Raven: She most certainly doesn't look like a Brahma, but I could be wrong. Her crest is not a pea comb, it is a single comb. Her body type is extremely U-Shaped, and her tail shouldn't be so erect. Plus, her face is quite round and her earlobes have a lot hanging from them. She doesn't even sound as similar as Cheesecake and Raven when she starts talking. She's relatively shy in the touchy sense, but often the first Brahma to come running up to you.





This is Cheesecake: She is what your average hatchery Brahma will look like - Lots of penciling on the back, which far as I'm concerned is not how they should look but still quite nice. Her body type overall seems pretty good to me, and her head is amazing, but that's judging on her being APA standard brahma or not. To me, she lives up to her name - She's very sweet, loves to jump up on my shoulders or lap, and is always running up to me the moment she sees me! Also, I believe she's head hen right now.



This is Mila: I believe she is the most up to standard bird we have of the trio. She doesn't have penciling, but instead some black leakage on the back, and her back levels quite nicely towards her very short tail. Her neck is quite short, though, and her head is very small but I notice that a lot of Brahmas are like that. Not entirely my cup of tea, and it seems her eyesight is rather far-sided (eating takes lots of focus and adjustment of the head before she actually pecks it) but I still love her! She's the "sassy" one of the bunch, and is always chattering under her breath when pacing around. Also, she is the absolute loudest when she needs to lay and egg, and if a Wyandotte bothers her during her egg-laying, she screams so loudly!!

Eggs, day 9! - Two gone

Today I culled two eggs so far. One was "Surprise #1" and the other was the pure Easter Egger egg. The EE egg ended up not fertile, go figure (that is why I culled it) and the surprise egg was fertile, but it did not develop at all. The reason I culled it was because while candling it, I noticed some cracks on the egg that seemed to have been formed while the egg was formed. After I gave it a chance, it didn't develop at all - So, I culled and inspected it. It looked exactly how a day 0 egg would look.

Otherwise, my 2 fetuses are still doing well, and growing oh so fast! The other two siblings to those are also coming through, but I don't see any fetus or veins. As for the rest - I still have hopes for about 4 others, and not sure on the rest.

The pure Easter Egger egg I tried hatching - Her mom had a really rough day yesterday. Tufted, my "Bearded Babe," always lays enormous eggs. We're talking double-yolker sized eggs that aren't actually double yolkers. Well, for a couple weeks they have been so big and hard for her to squeeze out that they come out lumpy, mountainous, and sometimes even all scratched up like a meteor. (pics coming soon!) Yesterday, though - She tried squeezing a monstrousity out for three hours! In the end, I gave her lots of water, all which she drank so needingly, and she only had a long, thin wrapping of crushed up shell come out. Along with a lot of viscous liquid and other matter, probably the yolk and white of the egg with whatever else. It was a horrible day for her, she was not feeling well after that, and today I'm cutting back her layer pellets and making her just feast on whatever is in the pasture. . . Because at first, huge eggs are amazing, but once they get like this - It is torture for her.