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Sunday, 15th June 2014
Our latest eggs have begun to hatch out. Three weeks ago we popped 12 Legbar chicken eggs and six of our own eggs (Leghorn crosses) in the incubator and these four are the first arrivals: three Legbars and one of ours (s/he is the yellow one). The plan (hope) was that by the time they hatched, we would have at least one broody chicken who we could convince to become their mum(s). As luck would have it we actually have four broody chickens at the moment. We have chosen our light golden bantam to take on these first four as she might struggle to fit any more under her. You may remember she hatched out four chicks back in March (see diary on 28th March) and she did a fine job with those.
The trick when giving chicks to a broody chicken is to fool them into thinking the chicks have just hatched under them. To do this it is best to give the chicken some false or spare eggs to sit on for a few days, so that when the chicks hatch in the incubator you can then do a swap: egg for chick. We have done this many times with our chickens and it usually works really well. On this particular occasion however, there was a slight difference. You may remember our 'wobbly' chick: we last mentioned her on 9th June when we described how she was back with 'mum' in the barn and slowly getting back on her feet, ('mum' being our light golden bantam...). We wondered whether we should move her when we introduced the new chicks tonight but in view of how well the two get on, we decided to leave them together. It is not usual for a chicken to still be looking after one brood of chicks and then start raising another but this does not mean it cannot work. The only problem is going to be as the chicks get older and 'mum' starts to take them outside. Unless our wobbly girl is a lot fitter by then, she may well not be able to get around as fast as she needs to!! There is also a small chance that at that point 'mum' may reject her wobbly daughter in favour of the new brood anyway... Time will tell.
And tomorrow we should have a duck update for you....
