Round up of the 2020 season

It’s been a busy year with several hatchings mostly brooded by Doris and her daughter Cagney. But “Mummy 3” got in on the act with Audrey Hepburn, Daisy and 7 of 9 all mothering 2 chicks together very peacefully. Miss Ellie and Xander.

“The Dots” were a particular highlight, Cagney’s second batch, Dotty, Motty and Titch. THe Dots were so called as they looked like dots on the webcam to mum for quite a while. Cagney, true to form, taught her charges how to roam outside the run and discovered the front garden as their own domain. They continue to be out and about most days, causing some of my concerned holiday cottage guests to phone me or ring the doorbell at 07:15am to tell me they were out!

This year unfortunately necessitated transport to see Oliver the gamekeeper for the surplus cockerels as Spring arrived and hormones surged they could not continue to live as bachelors happily. It is very sad but unfortunately nature provides more cockerels than we can keep or rehome.

More sad news we have to report the passing away of Big Betty and Henrietta, two of my original 4 girls.

The new hens are all laying now, beautiful little pullet eggs, and Lilibet managed to lay a double yolker as her first egg - which explained it’s larger size than I was expecting once cracked.

Zizzi has managed to escape visiting Oliver and has taken up residence in the Rose Garden run with Ladybird, Lilibet, Lucy, Sally and 4 little cockerels (for now). He is a beautiful boy with a lovely crow and large chest and looks after his girls very nicely.

Bertie continues to care for his 10 girls and Lacey assists. She has not crowed much recently but is still behaviourally quite boyish. She is very friendly and loves a cuddle.

Lots of refeathering is going on right now as the nights draw in and all the big girls have stopped laying. Cagney is stubbornly broody although Doris has given up on brood number 3 thankfully.

Hope this has caught up everyone on the 2020 goings on……

Enter Zebedee - a hair raising hatching day

Zebedee was hatched on 22nd October but the last 24 hours was rather nail biting. Picture the scene, Doris Day has been sitting on the egg for 20 out of the 21 days. The egg had been candled and shown the chick growing nicely. Then, day 21, Doris stands up climbs on a perch and leaves the coop with the other hens. She continues to look rather too perky for a broody hen and stays out with the flock for 2 hours.

By this time I’ve picked up the Zebedee egg and warmed it in my sweaty hand in my coat pocket. After 10 mins I can feel the chick very active and obviously gearing up to hatch.

What to do…….

Called my hen keeping friend to beg an emergency incubator, called my mum (because that’s what you do).

Mum set off to come and build a DIY incubator or keep the egg warm somehow. Wartime spirit of can do in adversity kicking in.

Luckily my hen keeping friend turned up with an incubator as backup. Bless her.

By this time I’d managed to catch Doris and lock her back up in the coop - I popped Zebedee’s egg under her as she had sat down again. We left her alone and luckily she must have felt the chick moving and she went back to broody.

First thing the next day and Zebedee had emerged unscathed and probably unaware of the drama!

He (I think he’s a he) is a lovely cream and grey chick, very smart and active despite some nippy weather of late. Doris is as proud as ever of her chick.

Disaster averted.

Farewell to the July chicks....

The ‘Allo ‘Allo chicks Rene, Michelle and Yvette went to their new home on Saturday. This has left the wooden coop considerably less lively at bedtime. Lovely to see them on their way though and together as a little family.

Other news, we have pullet eggs from Seven of Nine - and she has been joint dust bathing with Bertie after she has become his new favourite.

Cagney and Lacey continue to act like naughty teenage girls and like to fly out of the run and go and see the boys in their run albeit from behind the safety of the fencing. They don’t go far and often simply hang out under the sun lounger on the patio.

Summer chicks for Doris the 'Allo 'Allo set

We’ve sold 5 of the Easter hens and 1 cockerel and we’ll be keeping the “Girlband” comprising Cagney and Lacey and Seven of Nine who are a very tight knit little gang. Lacey loves nothing better than to sit on your shoulder and get some fuss, Cagney gets worried when her girl is not within 4 inches and makes a plaintive cluck until we give her Lacey back again. Raising them in the Garage brooder initially has made them very very tame and we now can’t bear to part with them.

Mid summer brought more babies. Two little buff hens hatched 11th July and 1 porcelain cockerel on 12th July. My aunt was visiting so we decided to name the cockerel after my mum as he was hatched on her birthday. He became Rene and the girls naturally had to be Michelle and Yvette.

They are ready for rehoming now as Doris Day is laying again and although she will brood them at night they are really independent during the day.

The Easter boys have been moved to the rose garden and have been doing a magnificent job of weeding the shingle bed. A chorus of crowing greets me each morning but they soon settle down into their days work of eating everything they can find.

We have a new visitor Frank the juvenile pheasant who is surprisingly tame and seems to think he is a chicken and should be in with the boys. I’ll put a picture up of him when I get a moment.

Today they have begun the wheat harvest at last so I’m expecting some new mice friends courtesy of the Chief Mouser Mia!

15 teenage chicks gain independence

Doris stopped brooding the chicks about a week ago, she was caring for 11 chicks and we had 4 chicks “The Garage Mob” housed in the garage at night in their brooder and in the wooden coop run in the daytime.

The Garage Mob comprises Cagney and Lacey the original late to hatch hens and Thirteen, the black cockerel that Doris decided she did not want around after 4 weeks, and Bernie the Buff cockerel who had to be rescued from some chicken bullying courtesy of the grey cockerel in Doris’s gang.

Soon the garage mob became accustomed to their daily trips to and from the garage so they were warm at night under the heat lamp and free in the day to enjoy scratching around in their run. Now these chicks are pretty tame and easy to handle and will approach to be petted. They have now integrated with the rest of the flock and roam freely without incident in the wider run in the daytime.

The Doris gang of 11 chicks were left to their own devices at about 6 weeks old as she moved house back to the wooden coop with Bertie, Betty, Henri and Mabel. Doris also began laying again.

Daisy and Audrey Hepburn are still broody in the purple coop and Sylvie joins them at night so they have a palace sized coop for 3 of them.

Tonight I am going to try to put the garage mob in the big coop for the night - we will have to see how that works out.

Growing up fast, new freedoms, boys or girls? - new video of Bertie ruling the roost...

Fifteen hungry chicks are going through the chick crumb at high speed. I’ve started letting them out and about during the day which they are loving, and the big chickens are getting used to the idea of the new flock members. Bertie works hard to keep the chicks safe alongside Doris Day, he chases off any curious adults as you’ll see in the latest video. No real aggression just the usual chicken ruffled petticoats.

Cagney and Lacey aka “the garage mob” don’t have the etiquette skills to rough it in with the rest and Doris knows that they are impostors and has applied the back of the neck hard peck so I’ve been letting them have a segregated palace in the wooden coop run where they can all see each other but not get into trouble. At night they go back to the garage and the warm light in the brooder. They seem very happy and let me pick them up with less fuss than before.

I think that the Marilyn’s are in fact all boys as they are leggy and have redder combs and wattles already. I think that one of the White Company (the 3 grey ones) is a boy but hopefully 2 are girls. I think the buff one with the cream tipped feathers is a boy but I think that the pretty black tailed one is a girl. Mabel the second or the black one I’m unconvinced either way the comb is reddish but I think Mabel’s was also at that stage - hoping for a girl. I think Cagney and Lacey are girls which is appropriate really or they’d have to use the other bathroom!

More news when the gender is more obvious.

Chicks getting feathers very fast.....Blindy RIP

I’ve added more photos to the gallery of the chicks who are growing up rapidly. Doris has 13 in with her and Cagney and Lacey are in the brooder in the garage. Sadly Blindy took a turn for the worst and died last Thursday. I think he may have been trampled a bit by the the other “garage chicks” on Wednesday night as he was suddenly unwell. He had a short life but he experienced a lovely mum in Doris - some nice days in the sunshine at Easter, and was managing to grow some little wing feathers at two weeks old. Sadly it wasn’t to be and we had a little funeral on Sunday for him.

The rest of the chicks are out of the coop first thing in the morning like greyhounds out of racing traps. They are on everything and practising little chest bumps with one another. Doris is still doing a lovely job keeping them all warm see the pic of her showing how wide she can go….

The Marilyns, The White Company, The Penguin, Cagney and Lacey and Blindy

Chupdate time on the Easter chicks….

The last 2 of Doris’s eggs did hatch even though Cagney took 2 full days to emerge and then spent 5 mins wearing an egg shell helmet! So the final tally is 16 chicks, 7 from Daisy as mum, 4 from Mabel as mum and 5 from Doris as mum.

Doris has 13 chicks currently in her run with her, we’ve called the bright blonde ones “The Marilyns” and the soft grey ones “The White Company” (because if they sold chicks they’d look like these). “The Penguin” is the only little black Mabel look-a-like, yellow belly and black back as she was last year.

I took Blindy out from the run a few days ago as it was getting chillier and he liked to sit in the sun to keep warm. He’s in the brooder with Cagney and Lacey, the late arrivals, as Doris would not be able to brood 16 chicks. Blindy actually worked out how to peck downwards when I put him on a saucer of chick crumb and he manages to get some food. I am still giving him water from a syringe a few times a day as I’m not sure he can find the water - but he is getting bigger and he’s still very lively. We’ll just see what happens but he has some friends now and is always nice a warm.

More updates to come soon.

Easter Chicks a plenty.....

Every egg turned out to be fertile so 19 out of 19. 9 out of 10 of the incubator eggs have hatched ok and this despite UKPowernetworks deciding on a power outage to install buried lines for a whole day last week. I employed sleeping bags and insulation and a very warm room for 8 hours and it seems to have averted disaster.

Doris hatched 5 of her 9 eggs and I took the other 4 eggs away and put in the incubator as she was beginning to spend time mothering her new chicks rather than sitting. 2 of those look to be hatching today but still not sure as yet.

This means a grand total of 14 with 2 more possibly pending.

We have a little black Mabel lookalike and 3 beautiful soft grey Mabel chicks. Doris has produced some super bright yellow blondes and Daisy lots of varying gingery jobs.

Sadly we have Blindy the 1 eyed chick who appears to be sightless. I’ve put him in with Doris so he can have a proper mother hen experience even if he only lives a short time which I suspect might be the case. I’ve helped him drink as he can’t find food or water alone, not sure if I can get him to eat but we’ll see. He spent a happy night in Doris’s wingpit with his brothers and sisters.

See pictures in the gallery of the new chicks.

Candling eggs, broody hens and 10 out of 10!

Doris went broody about a week ago and has been sitting on 8 eggs, to which she added another (cheeky) for 7 days. I have yet to candle her eggs to check for development but will do so at the weekend.

I also have 10 eggs in an incubator, a very fancy incubator that my lovely chicken keeping friend kindly lent to me. I candled them a couple of days ago and Bertie has scored 10 out of 10 so far. This does not mean that all will go on to hatch but it does mean that my lovely boy has been 100% successful in doing his job i.e. fertilising the eggs.

More updates to follow, chicks (assuming all goes well) expected before Easter.