We start with Shimako, who is usually a bit of a funny-face, but today she’s so cute! Come on, Shima-chan, put your paw up! No? She got bored very quickly.
This season’s chicks
This season’s chicks have grown big. Sadly, not very many survived, but these ones are growing up healthy. They got covered in poop the other day, so I washed them: the shiny ones are shiny, and the dirty ones are still dirty. They’re all cute. They don’t have names yet, so I need to think some up.
Some are about four months old and some about three. The white one is the friendliest. As you can see, three are roosters and two are hens. A high rooster rate, please stop! Because it’s been cold, they were kept in a small container to stay warm, but they’re now old enough, so they recently made their debut in the chicken coop’s playground. Now it’s time to work hard at blending into chicken society, and please, no big fuss. This one looks just like our Wakame!
What is a Black Star?
On the right is Cho, and on the left is Balloon. They look completely different, but they’re actually the same kind: Black Star, also sold in America as the Black Sex Link.
In a sex-link chicken, the gene for feather color and the gene for sex sit in the same place, so males hatch one color and females another. Even a beginner can tell the chicks apart: orange ones are males, black ones are females. You don’t get this from a pure breed; it happens when you cross certain breeds together. Red Star, Gold Star and Yellow Star work the same way. People sure like naming them by color!
The correct Black Star color is Balloon’s: black with an emerald-green sheen and a little orange or red. Yet for some reason Cho is almost all orange. She looked like a butterfly, so she became Cho (“butterfly”).
Same kind, but they aren’t especially close, and they probably hate this photo shoot. Cho is older; I bought her first, on her own, and Balloon came later with a group, so their faces and builds are quite different. Black Stars lay ordinary brown eggs, sometimes a bit darker, quite large and just like the ones in the supermarket. They’re calm, probably fine around children, and pretty sturdy.
Thanks for watching Chicken Paradise Hawaii! See you in the next episode.