Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from NicolaRomana, our handsome Aracuna hen – a Chilean breed that lays blue eggs – has successfully sat for 21 days on a dozen fertilized eggs and managed to hatch seven chicks. Three are Scots Dumpies (a rare UK breed) and four white trouser-feathered Silkies. The chicks are three weeks old now and we feel incredibly lucky that they’ve survived for so long given our previous experiences with foxes and hens (see the Clucking hell chapter in Pete’s book There’s A Hippo In My Cistern/Collins, #7.99).
We didn’t do this with an incubator: the eggs were bought off e-Bay, sat at Freightliners Farm, Sheringham Road, N7 for a while and even managed to avoid mishap when cycled home once Romana went broody.
3 comments:
How are the chicks doing? I guess they must be all grown up by now.
We've just got chickens. Hubby did start murmuring about them earlier last year, but after reading your hubby's book in September he became quite determined about the idea. I wasn't too sure to begin with, but now they are here, I'm pretty hooked, and it's not been quite a week.
Hi Karin, yes the chicks did well in 2008. All survived and grew. The Scotch dumpies were adorable, 2 cocks and a hen, altho one was a bit savaged by our other hen. Luckily Pete again managed to save a feathered friend's life, and that chick's pecked head healed. Fowl play? The chicks are now all living at Freightliners Farm because really Romana was their foster mum. Hope you continue enjoying your hens they will do some real good when the snails come. Nicola
I had assumed you were expanding your flock. A good way of dealing with a broody hen, I guess.
I'm hoping it's because they are still quite young, but when one of them found a snail it didn't know what to do with it and spat it out. Unless the snail was dead inside and didn't taste nice. I didn't take a look.
The eldest one seems most clued up and the other two don't always know what to do, so she takes advantage and often gets the best bits.
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