Rhode Rocks are a cross between a Plymouth Rock hen and a Rhode Island Red cock … their colouring varies from almost totally black, to black with brown hackles and wing/tail tips. As a cross bred hen (hybrid) they are reliable layers, laying throughout the year.
We have three, which we collected as POL in January 2010 … Clarissa, Nigella and Delia … known collectively as the ‘Cook Chooks’ 
We didn’t have to wait long for them to lay, we had one egg for the first two days, and three on their third day with us … they are darker brown than those laid by the ex-batts or Light Sussex. One of them lays eggs with a speckled end … but I can’t yet tell which hen.
As with all hens, they have distinct personalities … Clarissa is top of the Rhode Rocks … and the only one with all her feathers. Delia has a bald patch at the base of her tail … with several other damaged feathers … while Nigella has damaged feathers but no bald patch – so they are easy to tell apart for now! Clarissa does peck at the others, but I would guess that much of the damage was done in the barn before we collected them, so no knowing if she is the only culprit. She has certainly tried to feather peck since being here, but I coated them with Vicks rub, so even though the smell doesn’t put her off, she can’t get enough of a grip to actually pull any feathers out.
Delia
Nigella
Clarissa
- Doing what hens do …
Yes, they are the same hens! The top three photos were taken on a sunny day and show their colouring well, but in most lights, they appear black with a green iridescence … which is almost impossible to capture in a photograph, so you’ll have to take my word for it!
Created January 2010, edited and photos added February 2010
Update March 2010 – Clarissa persisted with the feather pecking, so eventually I rehomed her to a family up the road that have a cockerel in with their hens … she instantly fell in love and started brooding – it wouldn’t be fair to move her again, so she’s staying put, content and well-behaved 
Update July 2011 – Nigella developed a dropped (pendulous) crop at a very young age. It may have been possible for her to have surgery, while other hen keepers might have culled her. We don’t feel surgery is a viable option for our hens – not only from a cost point of view, but because they would have little understanding of the discomfort and you can’t comfort a hen with affection as you can a cat or a dog. So we treated the dropped crop with regular natural yoghurt and cod liver oil to keep the crop soft, and with maggots when it was hard. However, she never put on much weight, and after several months the crop began to increase in size while she lost still more weight. We decided to call it a day when the crop was hard more often than it was soft, and we were approaching an extended holiday period when the hens would only be visited once a day, so such treatments would be impractical. Therefore Nigella was put to sleep on 19/7/11.
Ex-batts | Light Sussex | Rhode Rocks | Welsummers | Online Album
