{"id":2750,"date":"2013-01-26T18:23:42","date_gmt":"2013-01-26T18:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2013-01-26T18:23:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T18:23:42","slug":"how-do-i-tell-pepper-and-dotty-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=2750","title":{"rendered":"How do I tell Pepper and Dotty apart?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months back I removed Pepper’s leg ring after reading that someone had a problem with mud being trapped under a leg ring and causing a sore, something I didn’t want to risk happening to Pepper. I knew that Dotty being a month younger than Pepper would make her easy to recognise while immature but wondered how I would tell them apart when she was fully grown. I know that their personalities are quite different but want to be able to visually tell them apart at a glance.<\/p>\n

I have noticed that Dotty has different feather markings. She has some plain feathers that are a more brown colour on her wings but I know from past experience that you can’t rely on feather colours as when they lose feathers, they often regrow a different colour. Pepper used to have pale wing feathers but lost them and they came back in without the pale colour. I then noticed that Dotty has a black mark on her beak whereas Pepper doesn’t. I think this may be the best permanent visual way of telling them apart.<\/p>\n

\"Dotty<\/a>

Dotty has darker wing feathers and a little black mark on her beak<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Pepper<\/a>

Pepper has no dark wing feathers and no marks on her beak<\/p><\/div>\n

\"This<\/a>

This shows more clearly the little black marks either side of Dotty’s beak<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Bluebell\"<\/a>

Bluebell<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Treacle\"<\/a>

Treacle<\/p><\/div>\n

Treacle has being going through a partial molt and has a bare bottom at the moment. Her dark pin feathers are already showing though, so she should be feathered again quite soon. The other three girls have maintained their fluffy bottoms.<\/p>\n

\"Treacle<\/a>

Treacle has a bare bottom<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Fluffy<\/a>

Fluffy bottoms<\/p><\/div>\n

We had a bag of sand left over from the concreting last weekend so I decided to add it to the corner without wood chip which I leave for the girls to scratch in. I hope it may improve the drainage and feel it certainly can’t do any harm.<\/p>\n

\"Sand<\/a>

Sand added to the corner and lightly forked in<\/p><\/div>\n

Bluebell is a terrific egg layer, she laid fifteen days in a row then missed one day, laid ten days in a row then missed one day then laid five days in a row then missed one day. For this time of year that is amazing. Treacle and Pepper were laying every other day with two or three days in a row sometimes but recently since we have had freezing temperatures, Pepper has missed two days and Treacle has just missed three days. I put Treacle’s extra missed day down to a partial molt as well as the cold.<\/p>\n

I held my hand over Dotty to see if she would squat but not yet. I don’t think she will be too long now though, she is growing up at last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months back I removed Pepper’s leg ring after reading that someone had a problem with mud being trapped under a leg ring and causing a sore, something I didn’t want to risk happening to Pepper. I knew that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2804,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions\/2804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}