The Sunday morning after the massacre.

Morning all

Thanks for the good wishes, seemed very odd to let the remaining 9 hens out this morning (gulp) and see so few...

Spot the Cream Legbar Cockerel and the 2 Cream Legbar pullets have refused to go into a hen house and have become feral birds, roosting in the Juniper or Wellingtonia trees about 20 foot up in the air..I can't get them to come to me and I can't get them down, so they have become a "problem to be dealt with sometime"

Ruby the Silver Dorking was their Brooder Mum, so I guess they saw what happened to her and have become very frightened?

Anyway, they can fly very well and seem to have the sense to get up out of reach.

If any of you reading this came on one of my chicken keeping courses last Autumn, you would have met Ginger, as, although quite new to people, she was the star turn who whould let you all stroke her and everybody cuddle her and allow me to point out all the chicken parts...I am missing her a lot this morning.

I DID wonder if some of the missing girls had been pinched, but as this happened in broad daylight, from my garden, quite close to the house, it seems unlikely. I guess I am clutching at straws in the hope they might still be alive, somewhere. But not so.

Also 3 of the missing girls were not tame and no one else would have got near them..they didn't squat or come to any one else...so I have discounted the idea and sadly assume Fox(es) had a good meal yesterday...

Feel a bit...at a loose end this morning. Not sure what I want to do, today...think I will continue in the polytunnel, maybe plant some seeds ( always makes me feel cheerful!) and of course take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch for the RSPB.

Have nice days, everyone..

Ruby and the chicklets, week 5

The Cream Legbar chicks are now 5 weeks old and have largely lost all their baby fluff and have proper feathers now. The cockerel is a bossy little chap to his sisters and steals their food whenever he can. He comes running to me whenever I go outside, though! I think he has worked out I mean food is on the way!



I turn out Ruby and the chicklets into the veg patch every day, they are safe from the other hens in there although not from cats!



They love to scratch and furtle around in the soil, eating all sorts of stuff. Ruby is a very attentive mother and teaches them well.



Ruby and the chicklets dust bathing in the sunshine. See how big the chicks are, now!

Chicklet update

Here are some pictures of the chicklets aged 15 days old...growing fast, see the feathers forming?

The patter of tiny claws......

20 days ago I put 3 fertile cream legbar eggs under Broody Ruby Dorking. She has faithfully sat on them, refusing to get up and eat or drink unless I push her out of the broody ark every morning - she is a VERY dedicated Mum!



Yesterday was day 19 ( chickens typically take 20 days to hatch out) so I hoped something would be happening soon and when I went out to open up the hen houses, guess what? I pushed Ruby off the nest to make her get some food and drink, I looked at the eggs and.....one of the eggs had "pipped"! (cracked from the chick pecking at it from the inside)



Can you see the crack? Click on the picture to enlarge it!

I went back again a couple of hours later and ...surprise! a chick was there, sprawled on the nest. The other two eggs had cracked and the chicks were cheeping furiously from inside, but hadn't emerged from the shells yet.







See the little chick peeking out from under Ruby?

I wasn't worried about the other two chicks then, as it can take a few hours for a chick to emerge, but as the day wore on I did begin to be concerned. The chicks were active and struggling to get out of the shells, but examining the shells showed me they were VERY thick eggshell indeed. The worry here is that, the longer the struggle goes on, the drier the shell and membrane inside becomes and the harder it is for a rapidly tiring chick to push it off.... So, by evening I had decided if the chicks hadn't managed to get out under their own steam I would give them a bit of help. I wasn't going to pull the shell off them but I would try to rehydrate the shells with warm water, to help the chicks along a bit..





So I did. I dripped warm water on the shells to help the chicks get out. The extra humidity allowed them to struggle free and they managed to hatch themselves. When both the chicks had made it out of the shell we put them in a box on top of the dehydrator to warm up and then I put them back under Ruby to dry out and fluff up.




I think I have two pullets and a cockerel. Chicks! I love them :-) More piccies to come tomorrow ;-)