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Sunday, July 18, 2010

I Wonder.

Little E-Claire is now pretty much feathered out and independent. While I suspected her mother was one of the Americaunas, it is now apparent I was correct. Of course, we all knew who the father was. E-Claire was hatched by Grendal, the Muscovy duck. She was fostered by Marie-Claire, our resident surrogate mother-hen, a Maran. Lately - over the past few days, she has been tight as white to one of the Americauna hens, who has, in turn, become rather friendly toward her. This is not an Americauna trait in my experience - they are aloof and tend to be loners. Could this be the layer of the egg that is now E-Claire? Is there some sort of bond - genetic? cosmic? - between them? Maybe it's just the unrelenting heat and humidity working its way into my brain. Any thoughts?

3 comments:

Kim said...

I am new to chicken raising, but I have 5 americanas along with 3 kinds of rock breeds. The americanas stick together, to the point that they all sleep on one of the feeders instead of the roosting bars like everyone else. The barred rock rooster completely ignores them. The only white americana is a loner and is always hiding. The other 4 hang out in pairs. One of them, my favorite, Lizzy, loves to be picked up and loved on. She hears me coming to lock up at night and runs down the ramp and out the gate to be held. She is so sweet. Your E-Claire (cute name) is so pretty! I bet she has just figured out that she is an americana and that the old saying, "birds of a feather flock together" is true.

Susan said...

You must have spent a lot of time with them when they were young! I found it interesting that E-Claire has had nothing to do with any of the other hens (americanas or otherwise) except for her 'mother', Marie-Claire and now this one americana hen. I find chicken-watching endlessly entertaining!

Mama Pea said...

Who the heck are we to say the chickens don't know what they're doing?? :o)