|
|
Post by kateflashy on Jun 3, 2008 12:12:51 GMT
well our chicken has she's been sitting for ages and jusybeen to check and saw 3 little faces pearing out from under her , they may be more but cant get close enough to look yet cos she's very protective
|
|
|
|
Post by fleabitten on Jun 3, 2008 12:44:24 GMT
how lovely!! My science teacher has a brooder and incubator thing for hatching chickens and sometimes he will have eggs hatched. All the little chickens run about and sit in their food and cheep - its so cute.  |
|
|
|
Post by raymond on Jun 3, 2008 13:10:14 GMT
How exciting! I have been looking after my neighbours chickens all week while they have been on holiday, including about 20 chicks they are soooo cute. I want some chickens now - thinking about taking on some ex battery hens. What type are yours are they fancies or  non fancies? (not sure if that is the correct terminology!) |
|
|
|
Post by kateflashy on Jun 3, 2008 13:34:32 GMT
we got a mixture , some fancy , some plain white ones, and 5 are ex meat chickens, they are huge , i think they are french reds they look like foghorn leg horn
|
|
|
|
Post by raymond on Jun 3, 2008 16:16:25 GMT
you have a whole farmyard of chickens! I think we are going to get three ex battery hens and then a cochon thingyerel which we will rescue from the chop. Just got to build me a chicken house now.
|
|
|
|
Post by racaille on Jun 3, 2008 16:44:27 GMT
If you're building a henhouse make sure it's foxproof! The wire netting has to be set in concrete below the level of the ground - my resident fox has been digging around mine but so far has been unable to get in.
so he's taken to hanging around in the DAY and snatching the hens from under my nose - I know this because I saw him! Since then he has taken my beautiful thingyerel, who used to defend his girls. I'm down to about half a dozen hens now (from two dozen - what with the buzzards picking them off too! It's really wild here. We also have pine martins which are very efficient killers too.)
I have a broody whose eggs are due to hatch any day now, but I fear some of them won't hatch successfully - they feel wrong. And 80% of the chicks are always boys - coq au vin is not bad though!
I have an exceptionally aggressive but very beautiful blue/grey one (I think she's a Bleu de Bourgogne) but the rest are a motley assortment. Getting a load more on Saturday from a friend.
More meals for the fox, I suppose, but I hate to keep them shut in. And they do a really efficient job of eating scorpions and small snakes.
|
|
|
|
Post by kateflashy on Jun 3, 2008 16:45:10 GMT
we started with 2 that someone gave us cos her others were fighting them , then one died so someone else gave us another 4, and then a freind gave us another 2, we had 10 babies last summer, and then we found 5 chickens that had falen from a meat lorry
so we took them in
just had a look and have counted 12 chicks
|
|
|
|
Post by kitcat on Jun 4, 2008 7:17:30 GMT
Wow Kateflashy, that's great. My mum always had hens that she would let wander around all day and would shut up in a shed over night. She lost surprisingly few to foxes.
|
|
|
|
Post by kateflashy on Jun 4, 2008 7:33:51 GMT
ours go where they like all day and in the shed at night but the one with the chicks has had them in the junk shed in a box , we dont have any foxes here but we did lose 5 earlier in the year to pine martins
|
|
non fancies? (not sure if that is the correct terminology!)
