OUR CHICKEN TEENAGERS ARE FUN!

The baby chicks of April have feathered out and become teenage chickens. And with all their antics who needs television? I am a firm believer in training chickens as pets and with this comes a sense of trust. I've started letting them free range in my garden under my direction and this is working well. I can pick them up at any time and put them back into their henhouse after our 'nature studies'. They'll actually walk up to me and peck off mosquitoes on my legs. Talk about friendship!
I'll build a chicken run very soon so that they can scratch around anytime they want.

Barred Plymouth Rocks are very tame and enjoy being held. This is Zeebee, one of the twins.

Hoot (brown & gray), Nina (dark red) and Phoebe (the zebra looking chicken) love dust baths.

I tell visitors I've tamed a wild hawk. This is actually Hoot and she is an Easter Egger chicken. She looks menacing but is actually the most docile of the bunch. She loves to sit in our laps and get petted. She follows me around the garden and listens to me talk about plants.

This is Bella, a Buff Orpington. She is all business in the garden. No bug can escape. She found a Palmetto bug and it was gone in one second. (Folks down South will know what a Palmetto bug is.)

Did you know that the domesticated chicken comes from the Red Jungle Fowl of tropical India?

They look so at home in our tropical garden. They make these little noises of contentment when looking for bugs. The black one is Gwen. She's a beautiful Austrolorp; a breed from Australia.

Hoot says, "Thanks for stopping by Tropical Texana."