I'm on holiday this week so I've been taking advantage of the good weather today to do some weeding. We had a border made along the pig pen fence this year - I love the pigs but I don't necessarily want to look at them ALL the time. We're going to plant a hedge of Scotch roses; the plants should be with us early November. I picked them because a) they are the right height, b) they have scented flowers and c) they have black hips; the latter two should make them quite wildlife friendly. They are also quite prickly, which (hopefully) will deter the pigs from messing with the hedge (it's on our side of the fence not theirs). I'm hoping that it will be well established before the next batch of pigs arrives in Spring.
Anyway, the hens have been helping me today. They are such keen...
We've lost two hens this week - an old Light Sussex and my Black Rock broody. I assume it's a fox - I know there are foxes around. I'm afraid this time the ultimate sanctions will have to be applied....
Yesterday was lovely - warm, still, sunny, but autumnal. You know how the light changes and there's just something in the air? The trees are starting to change to gold and red now - and I get the urge to prepare for winter. I think in a previous life, I must have lived somewhere where battening down the hatches was truly required.
Anyway, yesterday, I decided to rationalise the hens i.e. let Cheeky Chick, the Cuckoo Maran and his / her mommy out of their run. I was confident that mommy would look after Cheeky - but no! She set Cheeky to scratch around the base of one of the trees and then legged it with her pals! Cheeky had a great time - I kept checking on him / her - I'll use the feminine so that she'll be a girl! - but come bedtime, she went all alone into her big empty coop....
You will recall that Chip is a Crested Cream Legbar cockerel, who was the sole survivor of a very poor hatch. Although we bought 6 day old Black Rocks as company for him, I don't really think they bonded and now that they are free-ranging, he's quite often on his own. Aawww...
With that in mind, Claire and I were up at 6am this morning to get to the rare breed sale at Carlisle in good time for the poultry sale at 10.30am - with a view to getting Chip a new harem!
And we were successful! We came home this afternoon with 2 lots of three Crested Cream Legbar pullets; one lot was a May hatch and the other a bit later. They look nice and healthy and have already mastered the ladders in the small ark. They are leg ringed and recorded on my poultry register!
Tonight, after dark, we...
We got our first egg from the Copper Black Marans today - it is without doubt, the smallest hen's egg I have ever seen. It's like a Cadbury Mini Egg! Still, they are only 21 weeks old.
I think we might have scared it out of them. We culled two of the three CB Maran cockerels last night, keeping the biggest and best looking as our new stock cockerel. He has been named Hector (and he has a house! Children of the 60s will understand this)....
Dan tootled off yesterday to pick up 13 x day old Black Rocks. They are in the garage - usually, I have them in the spare room to start but Dan has it earmarked as a training room / home cinema, so chicks are banned.
So far they look well - much stronger today than yesterday. Tomorrow, I'll let them out of the box into the run. I did buy these ones with the intention of selling some of them at POL. They are such good hens. The Marans are so flighty - they were all perched on the fence today. Hopefully, they will start laying soon.
One of the 15-week-old Black Rocks was a bit poorly on Sunday. I shut her in and gave her some herbal wormer; I also gave her a second leg ring so I'd be able to recognise her but she seems fine now. I wouldn't normally let then out this early but they...
Some of you mey recall from an earlier post that I am determined to keep better records of our poultry flock. At the beginning of August, I carried out a headcount and committed this to a spreadsheet. I also decided to leg ring different batches of hens - as opposed to marking individual hens. Our two RIR are Mrs Red and Mrs Green, and three of our Light Sussex are Misses Yellow, Pink and Purple respectively. This doesn't really work now that we've got bigger numbers and more Black Rocks - not enough colours, you see.
A couple of weeks ago, the three Copper Black Marans got yellow leg rings. Today, all the "grown up" Black Rocks got "red on right". The broody was given an additional yellow ring, as a mark of honour!
I also intended to ring the six Black Rock pullets we have -...
I think our RIR / LS broody has given up. When I came home this evening, the egg was out on the ground, all the food was eaten and she shot out for corn. She's gone to bed in the broody coop tonight, so we'll see what she's like in the morning.
I can't blame her - I know she can't count to 21 but she must know she's been there a long time....
I was running the second backyard poultry course on Saturday. One of the participants had asked a question about dogs and hens and I had explained that most dogs would naturally chase hens and would have to be trained to leave them alone.
A bit later, Dan stuck his head round the door, excused himself to the group, then told me that we had a mini-crisis; Buster, the Staffie belonging to the nearby taxi company, had killed one of our chickens. I excused myself and shot out, followed by Calum, who was on the course but is a friend of ours.
The field seemed to be covered in white feathers; Buster was eyeing up the Black Rock broody and the Cuckoo Maran chick, who are in a run. Buster, who is basically a nice dog, came when I called him and was removed from the scene by his owner....
Our twelve Cream Legbar eggs, bought off eBay, were due to hatch last Thursday. One hatched and that was under Carol's broody hen. This time, I followed the incubator instructions to the letter.
I don't think I'm going to buy off eBay again. I'll either use my own eggs or try to buy fertilised eggs locally. The young Copper Black Maran cockerels are very active, but the CB pullets aren't laying yet.
Our RIR / LS, who was sitting on some of the Cream Legbar eggs, is still sitting. If she hasn't given up by 8th September, I'm going to slip some day-old Black Rocks under her.
Oh, and Chip is making party hooter noises, so I think he's definitely a boy!...
Until yesterday, we had three RIR in our laying flock. Last night, we had to despatch Mrs Pink. She had been failing for a few days - I don't think she was in any distress, just fading away so we decided that it was time to call it a day. I was conscious of the fact that the RIR were quite old hens, but I wasn't sure how old. This set me thinking about the other hens too, and I realised that my records were quite inadequate and that I had no real record of who was who.
Last night, I set about trying to work this out, using and Excel spreadsheet and back entries of the TAS diary. Wow, doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself!
The RIR were hatched around September 2003, so they are almost five years old. Our Light Sussex were hatched in November 2005 (bought in ) and April...
We don't normally name our chickens - the closest we've got previously was "Mrs Green", Mrs Red" according to the leg rings. Now we have Blanche.
Blanche is a Black Rock with distinctive white "earrings" - she's quite young and was in the batch of Black Rocks I bought at Stirling a couple of months ago. Actually, I'm not sure BR can have white lobes but that's another issue.
She's always been tame-ish and bit of a loner, but over the last couple of days (bribed with dried mealworms) she has become quite tame and I rather like it! She's also very vocal and if you talk to her, she "talks" back. This evening, we spend a happy 10 minutes in the garage, with the dogs excluded; I fed her some mealworms and caught her by one leg (!) before lifting her on to my knee. Once there, she sat...
Six Chocolate Orpington hatching eggs sold on eBay today for £250 (Two hundred and fifty pounds - just in case you think I've misplaced the decimal point). Apparently, a pullet sold for £250 and a cockerel for £500 this year.
They are stunning hens IMHO, but I wouldn't pay that for a REAL chocolate egg!
I bought 12 Cream Legbar eggs - and am committed to following the incubator instructions to the letter. I fear I have been rather complacent with the last two batches, which probably explains the poor hatch rate. Must do better!...
Here is a recent photo of Chip, our sole Cream Legbar. I'm pretty sure he's a boy. He has a head for heights - I've found him perched on top of the water container yesterday and here he is on top of the feeder. You can see his little harem, and Meg, gazing up at him in awe and admiration!...
Our broody hen and her small family seem to be fine.
The weather here was overcast and cool this morning, but at about 10am, the cloud cleared and it is now a lovely warm, sunny day. I checked on them both this morning Broody refused to stay out of the nest - if I shut her out, she was terribly agitated, so I decided to go with the flow.
As a mother who quite often has no idea what she's doing, I projected my fears on to Broody. However, her maternal instinct seems to be in good working order. She and chick have been out in the sun since it came out. Chick is pecking away at chick crumbs, with mum, and toddling about (he's not very good on his feet yet).
I am referring to the chick as a "he" but I don't actually know what sex it is - but it is a Cuckoo Maran not a RIR.
It...
From previous entries, you will know that we have a broody hen, rather unexpectedly. We have no cockerel at the moment, so I bought 12 eggs - 6 RIR and 6 Cuckoo Maran; just in case she got fed up, I put four (plus the ones of ours she'd already hijacked) under her and the remaining eight in the incubator. They were due to hatch on Friday. I noticed last week that the temperature in the incubator was low, so wasn't at all hopful of getting any chicks - Dan candled them and said two looked like they were full of chick.
Nothing Friday, nothing yesterday; I was going to switch the incubator off today. I awoke this morning at 6am to the sound of cheeping! One egg in the incubator has hatched! I will leave the incubator on for another 24 hours or so, just in case.
I have to confess, I...
I didn't have a good mroning today. Since it's the first day of the school holdays and Dan's at home childminding, I told him to lie-in and I'd do the morning round. Usually, I'm very organised but somehow, this morning, I failed to shut in Chip and the girls properly and forgot to let the ladders down on the big ark, so four hens didn't get out until midday.
Fortunately, no-one seems any worse for my slip-ups, although Dan was pretty frazzled trying to get seven, 6 week-old chicks back in the run, with the "help" of our two dogs!
I think I'll have a lie-in tomorrow....
Well, she's still sitting tight. The broody is a young Black Rock - I'm surpised at that, I would have thought one of the pure breeds was more likely, and not very likely at that. In fact, I had asked Andrew for one of his Silkies as a broody, before they both turned out to be boys.
I bought 6 RIR and 6 Cuckoo Maran eggs for her - I've put 8 in the incubator and 4 under her (I could only get eight in the incubator as they were good sized eggs). I was reluctant to give her all the eggs, because I don't know how reliable she will be.
She dashes out in the morning gobbles down some food and a drink and races back to her nestbox. She has to be forced out in the afternoon to top up.
I've ordered her a broody coop - yes, I know a cardboard box in the corner of the garage would do....
We've got a broody hen. We've never had one before and it's one of the older Black Rocks. I've ordered some eggs off eBay and will try to get her to sit - if she doesn't I'll stick them in the incubator, but she might as well do something constructive. Hopefully, the eggs will come tomorrow and I'll get her settled tomorrow night.
Highland Show tomorrow, so I hope the weather's good. Well, dry will do!...
Have you ever seen a chick sleep standing up? We have.
To try and make sure Chip didn't grow up into some kind of oddball, caused by spending his formative months with a felt mouse, we bought 6 day old Black Rocks today. Chip's world has been turned upside down. Unlike the felt mouse, these girls move, cheep, peck, push, shove. And really tire a wee Chip out!
When Dan introduced the, Chip hid in the feeder, but he's a bit more sociable now.
When I came home from work tonight, Chip looked worn out - he was standing up but hie eyes were closed and he was nodding. Then he'd rally, have a peck at his new companions, get pecked, eat some chick crumbs, have a drink, then start nodding again. The six girls seem to rest in shifts, and Chip doesn't seem to be able to relax when any of...
The Cream Legbar eggs were due to hatch yesterday. I had a bad feeling about them, though. However, bang on time, one hatched so I set up the heat lamp in a box in the puppy cage and moved the first chick in there, hoping that a second egg, from which cheeping could be heard, would hatch too.
When we got up this morning and the frist chick was dead. It had moved away from the lamp, gone out through the bars of the puppy cage and died. I am really gutted that I didn't foresee this. I just never thought it would move away from the warmth.
Anyway, the second egg has hatched. None of the others look like doing anything, so we have a single chick. We've called him / her Chip. I'm trying to find some companions for Chip, but meantime, I've put in a little felt mouse. The Marans, at...
Our French Copper Black Marans, successfully hatched from eBay eggs, are now nearly a month old. They've been living outside for a week now, and have settled in well.
We just wish they would learn to go to bed - they come down their ladder in the morning, and can often be found upstairs having a siesta in the afternoon, but when night falls they all huddle together downstairs shivering! They're very tame and queue up to be lifted into the top of their ark, but it's a pain in the backside.
Last weekend R gave them a dust bath - a seed tray full of earth - and this is how they reacted:
Chicks dust bathing from asmallholder on Vimeo.
They love it! It's amazing what an instinct they have for dust-bathing and scratching and how quickly they display it when even only a few weeks...
There was a time when the best present Dan could buy me was a chocolate bar but no more! (Actually, chocolate is also welcome anytime).
Today, 6 Cream Legbar eggs arrived in the post. They are the most lovely colour and if Dan hadn't taken the camera to London (again), I'd have taken a photograph of them. They have now been "resting" for about 12 hours so I'm just going to pop them in the incubator.
Fingers crossed!...
Of our six cheeps, I'm pretty sure we've got two cockerels and four hens. Two of the cheeps are bigger than the other four and have real coppertops. I've had alook at some photos of adult birds, and the hens are black, with the cockerels having the copper head and collar.
I think we'll keep two hens and one cockerel and sell a trio, once they get (much) bigger....
We had our first egg from the new Black Rocks we bought last Saturday. There were two but one was squished. The eight new girls are now free-ranging, but don't really mix with the existing hens except at corn time. The new girls don't quite recognise the "call to corn" yet, but they are learning fast. One of the "old" BR may defect to the new flock, I think - birds of a feather and all that.
The six cheeps seem to be doing fine. I've now turned off the incubator and discarded the seventh egg. The six are very small and very, very cute - two have copper tops! They seem to be finding the water and food fine, so we'll see how they go on....
Seven hours later, the first two chicks are in the brooder, a further three have hatched successfully and are drying off in the incubator and one is pipping. Only one is showing no activity yet.
I'd take some photos but Dan's taken the camera to London. Now what can there be in London that justifies a camera more than my cheeps?
Just off to move the three to the brooder!...
Well, the new Black Rocks seem to have survived the trauma of the poultry sale. We cobbled together a temporary run for them today round about their house - the fixed run is way too small and is difficult to move. One BR flew over the fence but we caught her and put her back - to be hinest, it's not a big deal and they will be free-ranging in a few days anyway, once I'm sure they know where home is. Our other hens seem completely unimpressed - even when the escapee joined them.
Seven of the BR are, well, black but No. 8 is quite different - either she's not a BR or she's a throwback to one of the parent breeds. She is quite lovely, with gold barred plumage round her neck; she's also a wee bit bigger than the others. Tess is obsessing about them - they are so much more exciting...
Caledonian Marts in Stirling hosted the Central Scotland Poultry Sale today. I went along, armed with cheque book, puppy cage and cat basket (just in case). There seemed to be a good turnout, but the first person I saw was Jo Lennon, who's a founder member of the FV&WF Smallholders' Association! I had arranged to meet Andrew and Janice Sharpe, who were "just there for a look". Hold that thought! There were about 200 lots, including hens, cockereles in singles, pairs and trios; ducks, geese, a few turkeys and two pea fowl.
I was really glad Andrew was there - as a former butcher, he knew his was around the mart and the system. I got my catalogue at the office - number 59 - and headed off to view. I was trying to be very organised, marking the lots I was interested in, but after the...
Our Hubbard meat chicks are now 7 weeks old and will be changing from chick crumbs to grower / finisher pellets over the next week or so. They are all growing well and have (finally) got the hang of the ladder up to the roosting area. This saves us the job at night of putting them to bed! Of course, now they've got the hang of it, they disappear at the first hint of inclement weather - which deprives Tess of her hen TV. They don't seem as active as the chicks we bred and raised ourselves last year, but maybe they're bred not to burn off energy tearing around. They are certainly very docile.
Our Brown Leghorn hen died recently - we assume the fox got her, which is surprising since she was the most alert and flighty of all our hens. She was also the oldest hen we had - we got her in...
The Hubbards, our five chicks, are moving out of the guest room into the garage tomorrow. I think we pamper them a bit and keep the lamp on too long, specially since the room is centrally heated. We've had the window open today, so it's been quite cool and they weren't huddling for warmth. They are quite well feathered now and sh*t for Britain.
So Dan's outside converting one of the portable runs for a hen house into a home for the chicks. within the garage. We will leave the lamp in - they can have it on at night still - but we can open the garage doors to toughen them up, then soon they can go REALLY outside.
I'm hoping that future broods will be outside almost from the word go....
