14th November 2009

It's been a while since my last blog and time seems to have gone so fast.
The girls(Tillie & Emilia) have been over at half term and what a busy week that was with hatching.We thought that all the Bantams were coming to end of laying so we put all we had in for 1 last hatch and the results were superb with virtually all the Gold Laced Wyandotte's and the Brahma's hatched along with an odd Buff Orp,Lavender Pekin and a couple of Mixed Japs so we need to sell some or we are going to run out of room.
Both the Gold Laced and Brahma's are still laying which is amazing for time of year and the fact that all the runs are now a mud bath so we have started moving a few around for Winter with runs on the Patio and gravel in front of the Barn.The ones we cannot shift will be covered as best we can with a lot of straw on the floor which we will use in the base of the Greenhouse Borders next spring.
We have a big problem with the Sparrows eating the Chickens food so the next job must be trying to make the runs Sparrow Proof(Some Hope)

20th September 2009

Did not realise it is nearly a month since last blog but it has been a hectic month as usual.We had a number of chicks hatch early September and all the Blue Partridge and Buff Orpington Bantams have gone to new homes.We lost a few Chamois Polands at hatching but the Gold Laced did well.Only got 2 White Orpington Large Fowl out of 6 fertile cannot understand why poor result again.
We have 2 incubators on go again with Cream Legbars,Buff Orpingtons,Large Black Orpingtons and Blue Partridge plus an odd Lavender Pekin.The Legbas and Black Orps eggs were bought in and only half are fertile but the others are our own and are 100%(Could be time of year and postage with the bought eggs)
Fingers crossed for first batch next weekend Really hoping for some Legbar Hens and Blue eggs.

23 August 2009

Well the girls went home Friday just in time to go on Holiday with their mum and dad.They are probably splashing about in a pool in Cyprus as I write so it is back to normal for us,No little helpers with the Chicks.
We had a bad hatch with our venture into breeding Large Orpingtons with only 2 Black out of 12 Black and 6 White hatching.
We currently have 2 incubators full with 6 more white,12 polands and some of our own.Th e main incubator is looking good with all 6 White Orpingtons and the 12 Polands fertile so it really is fingers crossed this time.

• We have 2 sets of 2 White Japanese,4 Buff bantam Orpingtons and the 2 Blacks all doing well in the Brooder and all except the 2 Large Black Orpingtons will be for sale soon.

5th August 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TILLIE

The girls went home on Saturday so we have had to do all the feeding,watering and egg collecting ourselves again.

It is Tillie's Birthday today-she becomes a teenager-so we are going over to see her this afternoon.She has a new Pet-Bugsy the Hamster to show us.

We have had a couple of new additions-2 very nosey Buff Orpington Chicks and there are more chicks to hatch in the next week including our first Orpington Large Fowl.

26th July 2009

The Grandchildren Tillie & Emilia came to stay for a week on Friday just in time for the annual visit to Heckington Show.We went on the Saturday and we were a bit dissappointed with it this year.There appeared to be less animals and very few pure breed poultry than in previous years.Still the girls enjoyed themselves especially inside the giant balls that float on water.
We came back to find that we had another baby,a new born White Japanese Bantam hatched by Duchess.This morning there were 2 and Duke was crowing loudly like any proud dad.
Both incubators are full at the moment with Japanese,Buff Orpington Bantams and Dark Brahma's in one and our venture into Large Breeds with Black and White Orpingtons in the other along with a test egg from our class A Serama's.

My First Ever Blog

What started out 2 years ago as keeping 6 Hens for Eggs and 3 cute White Japanese Bantams for pets has developed into a full time hobby looking after 13 different Breeds totalling around 100 Chickens all with their own unique character.

We have started to incubate a few more recently for next years breeding and these will hopefully hatch in the next 2 weeks(Will keep you informed).

The Chicks have had a terrible week with the weather and seem to have spent more time inside than out.Some are really bedraggled with the rain and starting to moult.They must think like us that Winter has come early especially as we were able to lock them up early.

Hope things improve next week as we have the Grandchildren coming to stay.They seem to really enjoy their stays with us looking after the chickens and being spoilt by us.