Quite Simply, Chook Chat

[Nicos]

....easily done Jess!...we keep looking at our 4 and have absolutely no idea what they are...hatched at Easter- so you'd think by 9 weeks you'd start to notice some difference?? ( fingers crossed they'll be all gals! ) ( one can only hope! )

[jessmorris]

Hello again!
I've been busy for months but just came onto the chat cage as I've put up my first breeding pen 'the love shack' and have managed to catch Hazel and Constantin (Russian orloff bantams). Once they stop puzzling on how to get out of the shack I'm hoping they will produce lots of fertile eggs between them, and hence many prize winning babies. I am down to one rooster and 3 hens on the orloff front (nearly all my first hatches were boys), and I'm hoping this late hatch, if indeed it is a hatch, will be mostly hens. Sigh. How's every one else's hatches going?
JM

[RichmondHens]

More good hatches for me. Two more lots of Welsummers all hatched. One cream legbar hatch 7 out of 8. 100% fertility all round, the unhatched CLB was a DIS.

V v happy as most of the welsummers are girls, half and half with the CLBs, and I have three araucana x CLB who can't be sexed yet.

On a sadder note I have to despatch two oldies tonight - one cock who has been blinded in a fight and not been right since, and an old hen with peritonitis.

Nearly lost some of the new hatchlings this morning when two dogs came into the garden and attacked the broody coops. Luckily owners were nearby and I gave them an earful, and all the chicks seem ok at the moment despite one getting stuck in the wire mesh and cutting its neck and another getting right through and getting cold as we did not find it for a while. Bloomin' dogs.

[Glutton4...]

Hope they're OK, RH!

Mine have had a feast of hard-boiled egg, the last few days. I found two and a half dozen in a bag that I thought Mr.G had taken to work to sell. They must have been around a month old, so I didn't want to risk putting them out for sale, just in case. I hard boiled them all, with the exception of two that floated, and peeled them. They were all fine typical!

We already have half a dozen hard-boiled eggs in the fridge for us to eat, so I fed some to the Dawg, and the Dog-lodgers, but their f@rt$ were so bad, I gave the rest to the Chooks. They didn't complain.

Had neighbours calling round for eggs today - need to get more Chooks, I think!

[VirginVegGrower]

Love it G4

[Glutton4...]

And on that note, I have just been on the BHWT site, to discover that our next regional collection is NEXT SUNDAY!!!! I will be phoning them first thing in the morning!

Well, after nine o'clock, anyway!

[jessmorris]

Boo, boo, boo. I have 4 growers penned in my front garden. Came home on Friday to find just 3 - all cockerels! No sign of exit or entry so I can only assume it was a 2 legged varmint. Now I have taken to locking my front gate at all times. Last year I kept finding the pen door open when I got home from work, and growers all down the road in folks gardens. I thought it was me being absent minded - now I'm not so sure. I have padlocked the pen door since they first went in this year. Sigh.
Why, why, why??

[RichmondHens]

JM that is so shocking, and unfortunately sounds like a two legged thief if only the pullet is missing. Someone obviously knew what they were looking for. Have you been in touch with the Police?

[Glutton4...]

I came home this afternoon to two escaped Chooks. This new lot are real Houdinis. One was just outside the outer run, in the margin at the boundary, so I rounded her up, and bunged her back in, but the one was on the lawn and had a lucky escape. She came running toward me, and Oscar gave chase. The Chook jumped, flapped and squawked, so Roxy decided to join in, as I bellowed at Oscar. The daft Chook squatted down and let Roxy grab her and carry her across the lawn! I bellowed at Roxy and she let go. Then, I had to almost rugby-tackle the daft bird to catch her and pop her back over the fence. I feel a wing-clipping session approaching!

[jessmorris]

No, I didn't tell the police RH. Just silently fumed.

[RichmondHens]

Got a fox about. Lost a bantie cock last weekend and ancient drake yesterday evening literally 10 mins after I had fed him. Poor old thing.

[jessmorris]

Not nice. I have 8 legged critters about. Its been scorchio (for Lancashire) and all our tiny crawling friends have come out of the woodwork so to speak.

On a more positive note, all 5 of my own bred eggs (Constantin the RO rooster x Hazel the very dark RO hen) are fertile! Hurrah!

[petal]

warm in lancashire?!!!?
grotty here, kittens born- kids liked watching- nice and gory... cat eating placenta and all that! jm chain your place up! or borrow our german shepherd...

[RichmondHens]

Oooh Petal more kittens! British Blue again? Anyhow, where've you been, you've not been around much?

Fingers crossed for your eggs JM. Wish we were scorching here. Midsummer day was so misty and murky it was more like November.

[jamesanddee]

We collected our first ever home produced egg yesterday! Whoop! Our four ladies have spent the week settling into their new home, and one has started laying. . . I did tell the other three that they better start laying soon or they will end up in the stock pot!

Debate was. . . how to divide the first layed egg between 2 people!