Buttercup is a Cotswold Black Tail, very similar in appearance to Chewbucka except her tail feathers are black, not white. In fact, they’re quite hard to tell apart from a distance and both disappear into the bark chip background when they stand still. Most of Buttercup’s feathers are a lovely honey colour though.
When she initially arrived, Buttercup was the most inquisitive of the Raptors, but after a couple of months they still haven’t developed any individual character traits. We struggled to name them (despite suggestions to the contrary, we’re not massive Star Wars fans and felt no compulsion to continue to original naming convention). I eventually gave them fairly conventional names, which Pete still can’t remember. Hopefully they will distinguish themselves as they get older, and at that point we may rename them. But in the meantime I refuse to call them ‘grey chicken’, ‘brown chicken’ and ‘brown & black chicken’ the way Pete does.
Their Raptor antics are very entertaining, though, so they get given a lot of greens as treats. In fact, since they arrived Cluck and Chewie have upped their consumption of veggies as well – both in terms of quantity and variety. I think they felt left out, after having been very picky in the past.
Buttercup left, with her sisters and Cluck Skywalker, for a free-range village life in January 2012.