Friday, October 05, 2007

Meet Gomer

For those of you not running around with a copy of Poultry Breed Standards tucked under your arm, this guy is an Old English Game Bantam Red Pyle. (Nod if you understand the choice of name...my second choice was Rock, and my daughter hates them both.)

He is a chicken with no real purpose in life, other than to look good. Perhaps someday he will father other little Pyles, (if I take a blow to the head and decide raising bantam chickens is one of my newly discovered passions) otherwise his coming to the farm was just another rescue/acquisition for the stash. Apparently, the concept of stash does not only apply to yarn. His previous owner is going away to college (in a large city where they frown on poultry in the dorms, no matter how small or handsome) and had to find a home for him. In his current state, which is with comb and wattles (a flaw for Old English Game bantams) no one wanted him, and so home to the farm he came. I have no plans to take scalpel and cauterizing iron to his head just to make him "right".

But you have to admit, he is handsome. Doesn't he look just like the model for half of the chicken/country brick-a-brack you see lining the walls of _________(fill in name of the large box store of your choice)?

We think so. Now to build him a coop....

6 comments:

Kathy said...

Welcome to the Club! I USED to raise and show Speckled Sussez and true Ameraucanas, both large and bantam. Now we just have 12 chickens with half of that being "Slick" and his five girls. Slick is a black Ameraucana bantam rooster who truely believes he could lick the World! He's got more attitude than Jack Nickolson. But, he does bring a certain amount of charm with him...

Just let me know when you want some Ameraucana eggs for hatching! heeheehee

melanie said...

Well, I have to tell...he's not the only poultry addition, but I was pacing myself, so as not to alarm anyone...

We have long admired the true Ameracaunas, (vs. the Easter eggers we have) and have only seen the standard size at shows, and not often at that...never seen them as bantams. How varied are the eggs in color?

Kathy said...

Mine are the true blue, which is one of the characteristics of the true Ameraucanas, Melanie...they should all lay blue eggs just like the Auracanas. One of Slick's girls loes lay an egg a bit more on the greenish side at times. This may be due to something else in her line way, way back.
The ones I have are blacks and blues. This next spring, why don't I send you some eggs for hatching under a broody hen? (Lord willing and the creek don't rize between now and then)

I have two large Easter Eggers myself. They are such hardy girls and lay green eggs. I love to give them to kids in the neighborhood so they can have "Green Eggs and Ham" for breakfast. And before I got back into sheep, I had a small egg business here with about 70+ laying hens of all sorts - and there were days I could not keep an egg for myself in the house. The main problem was I started having asthma attacks from all the poultry dust. Oh well...

Gomer looks like a nice guy. And sometimes those non-conforming birds make the best Barnyard Birds! Good onya for giving him a good home!

melanie said...

Kathy-

What a nice offer! Madison will be in poultry heaven, but we'll keep it quiet until the Spring, in case the creek rizes!

Kathy said...

Sure thing, Melanie! Mum's the word...I won't tell Slick or his girls either. ;-)

melanie said...

Yes, Mum is good..otherwise there'd be performance pressure for Slick, and we can't have that!