Category: Chickens

Having lain on the eggs for a number of weeks, Hattie has finally emerged with her chicks.  Just two (despite sitting on a lot of eggs), but the are healthy and speeding round the run.  The other hens seem quite happy which is good.

Aren’t they little cuties :).

Our broody hen, Hattie, has done the business and we have had a glimpse of our first hatchling.  We know there are at least two and there are still more eggs to hatch.  Exciting 🙂

Today, we collected 4 rescue hens from the BWHT.  We last got rescue hens 2 years ago when we moved here.  Last year, we added some young hens along with our cockerel.

Sadly, some of the original rescue hens have passed on, so we decided to get some more.  We drove over to North Somerset (via B&Q, as you do) and collected 4 hens.  This was their first day out of a barn, their first taste of fresh air and the first time they had seem the outdoors.

So what did we do, put them in a box and drove them home.

They were not keen on this and were especially miffed when we went round roundabouts!  One of them laid an egg en route which survived the journey intact!  We were soon home and quickly we took them to their run.  We have two runs that are side by side and the new arrivals were put in with our one remaining rescue hen, Scrawny.  They will be kept separate from the others (for now) otherwise the feathers would be flying.

The new arrivals were pretty calm, all things considered.  Scrawny was a bit put out (hens do not like meeting new hens), but fortunately did not turn violent – just a peck here and there.  The new arrivals didn’t seem to care, I expect they are used to constant pecking in the crowded conditions they have come from.

So, now we’ll let them build their strength up and get to know each other and also new our other hens (through the divide).  Hopefully, they’ll do a bit of pecking order sorting out so that when we merge them all in a few weeks, there will not be too many feathers flying.

We were pondering hatching some of our eggs this year and looked into incubators, but were put off by the price.  So we did some research and set up a nice little hen house with a nest and some golf balls.

Nothing.

Until last week when we returned from a short holiday to find a broody hen in the main hen house.  But, no eggs under her.  We tried moving her to the special broody quarters but she wasn’t having that and went straight back.  The other hens started to lay in the broody quarters (as little miss broody was quite aggressive if anyone went near her).

So we risked life and limb and placed some eggs under her.  We thought 7 would do it.

Only now the other hens have gone back to laying in the main house and little miss broody is nabbing these eggs to.

No eggs for us for a bit!

But will be great to have some baby chickens, they are expected mid June.