A Christmas suprise!!! Hatched

[Mucky Lizz!!]

Hi,
Merry Christmas to you all,

I had a wonderful suprise yesterday and again today ......... yes chicks hatching, yes the middle of so called winter up here in the highlands and I have a hen (silkie x shetland) sat on chicks!! I thought the 3 silkies were mad 2 months ago hatching out 11 chicks, but this hen has been sat before them and finally 3 months later she got what she wanted for christmas!!!

Hope you all have a great Hogmany (New Year ) to you all

Lizz x

[dexterdoglancashire]

Congratulations Liz! You must be feeling very chuffed! Dexterdog

[ugly gourd]

its not only plants gone mad I watched a blue tit eyeing up our nest box inspecting it inside and out but congratulations on your new arrivals!!

[Alice]

Hope your chicks do well Liz.

[Crazy Chickie]

Congatulations on your chickies! Any pics?

Merry Chookmas all!!!

[Mucky Lizz!!]

Both chicks still ok, growing quick, a lot of wind and rain up here, so they are sitting tight, but are taking the weather ok without being under mum all the time. Mum is a nasty so and so, was whilst she was sat too!! Prefer the silkies as you can pick them up and move them at anytime!!
Will try and get photos soon

[Birdie Wife]

Great to hear fom you again Lizz, congratulations on the new arrivals! I was donated two roosters just before Christmas so I'm hoping for chicks in the spring, which I hope to raise for the table. Any tips?

[Mucky Lizz!!]

Just before xmas my silkies hatched out 11 table bird chicks, the rate they grew was amazing, they constantly eat, and were also going to eat and drink throughout the night with very little light about.
The best tips I can give are to give them a good feed, chick crumb and growers pellets till the time you are ready for them on the table. As well as greens- grass and kitchen bits. Also, to keep the weight on keep them pen ed up. As soon as they start to wander the muscles in the legs start to strengthen and become tougher when cooked unless cooked for longer seperate to the bird.
I too am hoping to do birds for the table, along with hundreds of pheasants and partridge and ducks!! Roll on.

Is everyones hens laying well at the minute? mine are producing loads of eggs, my poults from 2006 must have started to lay too!!
Doubt there will have been any laid today, the winds have been awful, the back of my greenhouse has blown in and I spent a couple of hours boarding up next doors broken bedroom window!!

[Crazy Chickie]

About half my hens have started laying, including my lil' ones that hatched in June. I'm such a proud chooky mammy, these were my first chicks and I hatched them in the incubator and raised them myself so I'm chuffed to bits.

Sorry about your greenhouse, winds have been really bad here too but nothing broken yet (touchwood).

Been meaning to ask, do you have any purebreed Shetland Hens? My folks had one when we lived up there and she was a real "Super Hen", laying almost all year round, smallish blue/white eggs. I bought a Shetland hen and cockerel last year and am very interested in learning as much as I can about this old breed.

[Birdie Wife]

None of mine are laying but the weather has been that awful, I'm not so surprised. Come springtime they'll be chugging them out though! I'm so pleased with my hens, the eggs are just huge (can hardly close the box with a half dozen in!) and wonderful when they're that fresh. Sorry, didn't mean to be preaching to the converted, just really happy with being one more step down the road to self-sufficiency!!

[Mucky Lizz!!]

I bought my shetland eggs off our favorite auction site, talking to a lady at kintaline farm in oban, she says that there are very few pure shetlands left (which is a conradiction as a shetland isn't a pure breed anyway!!) But mine have a lot of the characteristics of shetlands and to be honest if they aren't 'pure' I'm not really all that bothered as they are such characters. One of them I had hatch on its own in the incubator, so I had it for a month before the others hatched so it used to follow my fingers as though they were mum, the fingers taught her to scratch in the grass and feed etc, she thought she was a dog rather than a chicken and used to run around chasing the dog!! It was difficult to get her to mingle in the group of chicks, but she still comes for cuddles and is really spoilt by me, she has taught my new kitten that chickens aren't for chasing and will stand up to anything.
Will try and post a few photos of my clan.

[Crazy Chickie]

Aww, what a sweetie. We once had a hen that kicked out all her chicks from the nest after they hatched, just one was found still alive and mum took it in and raised him by hand. He lived in the house with us while he was wee and was so tame. We christened him Special Chicken and he was a bit, my little sister used to put him in the basket on the front of her bike and take him down to the beach!!! When he moved out to live with the big hens they were very mean to him and he couldn't work out what kind of animal he was ment to be. He used to try and perch on the washing line and would walk along the washing. We gave him and the other hens away when we moved house.

Would love to see your pics of your Shetland hens Liz, the Shetland hens I bought don't really look like mums old hen but then she may not have been 'purebreed' either. Do you have a Shetland cockerel too, or do you just have hens? What was your hatching rate like from your ebay eggs? Would you recommend them? Any info you could point me towards would be great!
Cheers
CC

[Mucky Lizz!!]

Hi,
From my shetland ebay eggs I had 3 out of 12 survive (few years ago now, so can't remember if any more hatched do remember more dead in shells), 2 hens and a cock. From 6 silkie eggs I had 4 hatch 3 hens 1 cock and the marans I had a nightmare with them, I had 3 cocks and 1 hen!!
My hens are extremely fertile, I have had at least 10 hens and 5 cocks this year not counting ones I've given away!! Or my xmas hatch!
Not sure how to get pics up, do remember in GYO grapevine they have a photo gallery, my shetland photos are in there. Will try and find it and add a comment so it comes to the top!.

[Mucky Lizz!!]

Hi CC
If you go onto page 3 of rule the roost, the thread is called what colour eggs, there are 3 photos of my chucks there.

[Crazy Chickie]

Hi Lizz, your chicken pics were great. Your darker coloured cockrel is just like my Magnus and your hens are very like wee Vaila. Are all your Shetland hens dark with the red around the bib/collar? Vaila has never laid an egg since I bought her last year so I don't know what colour she will produce though I was told it would be blue.