Blue splash Denim Hens Chick at 1-2 days old
Light Blue Denim pullet at around 8 weeks
Feather detail of blue laced blue feathering with gold on 8 week old chick.
Angel, a 9 week old blue mottled pullet
Angel is is a dark blue pullet with mottled shanks and beak, as well mottled blue (white tipped) feathers around her chest. At this age chicks are growing into the lanky teenage phase!
Emily Alice, a black and gold mother from the Denim Hens Flock.
Emily Alice is a great example of a (black)Denim Hen. She is very beautiful with a stunning 'beetle green sheen' and gold lacing, and she is a great layer of delicious and large eggs (around 65g).
The Denim Hens:
The Denim Hens are our own line of cross-bred blue hen which we have developed from a number of breeds, focusing on the distinctive blue laced appearance, and great egg laying. These girls should lay around 200 eggs per year, at least as big as a commercial "extra-large" egg. Denim Hens are excellent winter layers.
As is the case with all blue hens, our denim hens come not only in blue (in fact a silvery-grey ground colour laced with darker grey), splash (white with splashes of grey, which are our 'stonewash' denim hens), and black. Many of the hens also have a little bit of colour, for example gold on the hackles. Others have beautifully laced feathers including smatterings of gold and mottling (white tips). The exact appearance and distribution of colour and tone is a unique identifying characteristic of each hen. These chickens will stand out in a crowd!
Denim hens are suitable for housing as part of a mixed flock. They tend to be friendly and attentive with people, however will need regular handling or hand feeding to become truly tame. Some of our hens are hand reared, and others are hen reared.
Splash, a splash coloured ('stonewash') rooster in the Denim Hens flock.
Basic Genetic information about blue:
The genetics of feather appearance (and other elements of chicken characteristics) are very interesting. The blue feathering gene is a really interesting example of this, and one which played a noteworthy role in the discovery of the modern science of genetics.
The blue gene is a variant of the gene which naturally causes black feathering in chickens. When the blue gene is present, the colour of a chicken is always changed from black, however this gene is special, in that it is "incompletely dominant" (it is sometimes called a blue diluter). The presence of one blue gene along with one black gene changes the appearance what would have been a black chicken to "blue". Two blue genes change the appearance of the chicken to "splash" or white, usually with specks or 'splashes' of grey .
The breeding of blue chickens is also different to most other colours, in that two blue chickens bred together will not produce all blue babies, rather they will produce a mixture of blue, splash and black offspring. The monk Mendel, who is generally considered the forefather of modern genetics, used the Andalusian chicken breed in his breeding experiments, which provided the evidence that characteristics of any one animal (although he also proved the same in plants) are passed down from both of the parents.
Statistically when two blue chickens reproduce, 25% of the offspring will be black, 25% will be splash, and 50% will be blue.
Denim Hens are priced at $70 aged at eighteen weeks (young adult) and $45 at nine weeks ("pre-teen" hen which is not fully grown but can be be housed comfortably in a coop with sister hens without heat or special measures).
We do not sell male Denim Hens, chickens are sold sexed but in the unlikely event of Mary turning into Max, we provide a replacement girl.
For any enquiries about Denim Hens, please contact us.