For @sirknight's Celestial Challenge, Tuesday is the animal kingdom. So I thought I might introduce some of The Miniature Smallholding animal kingdom each week. I love reading about the characters and quirks of other people's animals, so maybe I'm not alone and someone else will enjoy hearing a bit about some of our crazy creatures!
So without further ado, let me introduce Ginger.
Ginger is a Golden Legbar. I had decided to get legbars because I'd read that they laid blue eggs. I found someone who was selling them at a Saturday farmers market. Unfortunately, the start time clashed with drop off for my daughter's gymnastics and we arrived late missing the best picks. Our plans were to get 3 legbar pullets and a legbar cockerel. We came home with one legbar pullet, one light Sussex pullet, one australorp cockerel, a barnevelder cockerel disguised as a pullet and a light Sussex cockerel thrown in for free! Why does this always seem to happen? You go out to buy one thing and come back with something you didn't plan on!
Ginger got her name as a bit of a joke. You see, I thought she would lay blue eggs. I am also a redhead and in Australia redheads/gingers are often called blue (among other things…). So I thought, why not flip the tables and call blue, ginger. She got the last laugh because only Cream Legbars lay blue eggs; goldens lay white.
When our first four hens passed, Ginger became the matriarch by default. She was always the light Sussex rooster’s favourite anyway. She's not the best matriarch because she's daft. Her only rule seems to be ‘The food is all mine!’ Any hen in the vicinity of the food will get pecked and often chased off. Sometimes she's so busy chasing everyone away, that she misses out while the others take the opportunity to guzzle it down. If I go into the run with the gardening fork she will take it upon herself to guard the fork, because the fork digs up tasty grubs and worms.
The irony is that she can look so regal!
However, sometimes her daft character shows through.
She hates to be cooped up and has smashed her beak flying and the coop wall in her excitement to get out. She could barely eat for days and had to have her own special bowl until her break grew back. So we can't lock her coop up and had to predator proof the runs instead.
Hope you enjoyed and farewell from queen Ginger!
