I've bred a Dinosaur...

I am all too aware that it has been far too long since I shared any photos of this years baby chickens. They really aren't babies any longer...

This photo just sums them up. Curious, and interested in everything, particularly if it might provide food. Preferably in the form of cake. In a fashion typical of teenagers everywere they'd much rather exist on a diet of junk food. 

I also love this photo as it shows off Big Bird's eyes. He has deep molten eyes, very un-chicken like, they're utterly beautiful.

Of course when you see him like this all of sudden he's not so beautiful and looks so very like a miniature dinosaur. Stick on 2 mini arms and you have a perfect T-Rex lookalike.

I'm also in love with his little inidan head-dress of mini feathers poking straight up! Of couse in his head he is big tough cockerel and is having none of this looking cute!



Speaking of cockerels. 

This is Boyo, my oldest lad, alas, he's now been usurped by the younger model, and is having to hang around with the babies. 

All the girls seem to prefer Froome's surfer boy highlights and muscular physique. 

We're in mid-chicken moult right now, the shed looks like an explosion in a feather pillow factory, and it's really interesting to see hwo much the chocolate colour of Froome and Wiggo has been bleached by the sun.

The dark colour on his chest is fresh feathers, you can see the pale patches where the old feathers remain. Over the next few weeks he'll loose the pale ones and go back to being chocolate coloured again. 

This feather shows the bleaching perfectly, in the middle part it was tucked under another feather, with just the ends exposed to the sunlight. The sun is so incredibly powerful a bleaching agent, though of course it's not going to be with us for much longer. Chickens moulting is just another one of the signs that summer really is over.