Monday, May 21, 2007

New Chick


The other excitement on my birthday was the arrival of this little yellow ball of fluff. Unfortunately it was the only one of the eggs that hatched and the rest seem to have been infertile. I am also unsure about what type it is - one bantam and one normal egg have disappeared and there were no shell traces to identify which egg hatched. We shall have to wait and see.

To be honest I am quite glad that we didn't have a mass hatching - I love the whole waiting to see thing and we don't want too many hens - if we could increase our wee flock by 1 or 2 a year that would probably be ideal. We don't rely on selling eggs or hens and they are a kind of garden pet, so it also nice to be able to identify each one individually.

It also stops there being any gender problems - we don't have a cockerel at the moment and are happy to have one so it doesn't matter which sex the ball of fluff is - However we would not have been able to keep 2, 3 or 4 cockerels and would have had to dispatch them sooner rather than later as they are not a meat variety. There isn't a great demand for cockerels as everyone has spares. It isn't a position I relish and is the only down side to hatching.

I have just moved the chick into our ark so that it can venture outside without the dangers of crows or cats carting it off. I have put the 2 broody marans in with it as they seem to be taking turns in chick minding anyway. This morning my stomach lurched as I couldn't find it under the hen that hatched it - fortunately I heard the cheep cheep cheep coming from under the broody hen in the other corner.

This evening I shall tell Katie that it has been born - she will want to handle it and a 3 day chick is a lot more robust than a 1 day chick.

10 comments:

Tracy x said...

Yet another reminder of how wonderful nature can be x
We cannot wait to have our own gathering of chucks but like you will not have them for the table, it is difficult to know how many is enough - there are only so many eggs you can eat and give away!
Looking forward to seeing how the little one develops.
Have a great week.
Tracy x
p.s - so happy that the wee doggy has found a new home x

Anonymous said...

How cute - am sure you will all have lots of fun watching this chick.

A belated Happy Birthday to you! I must get to Browns on one of my trips home, I keep hearing about it.

Annie

Suffolkmum said...

Sweet chick, enjoy watching him! Belated happy birthday- i'm just catching up having had a computer-free weekend - gorgeous flowers.

Anonymous said...

Oh bless! As soon as we have some land we are going to have chickens - like you I would like them as a pet that produce some breakfst occasionally! Oh....
Sounds like you had a great birthday!

Jane said...

Tracey - we have 7 or 8 hens and 3 ducks - winter we get 3-7 eggs a week (all duck), spring & autumn about 4 a day, mid summer 9 a day, We get through all our eggs ourselves - my eldset daughter is addicted to french toast, one of the few things she can cook unaided and we eat a lot of mayonnaise - except at the very height of summer when we give a few away to family (not local, a good friend sells eggs and I wouldn't want to step on her toes).

The chick is very cute - especially as it has 2 very attentive mothers. I went out to attend to a racket five minutes ago and it was caused by Jasmine sunbathing about 4 feet away from the chicken run - the two maran mothers were squawking away with their tales all fluffed up hiding the chick from view. Poor Jasmine couldn't work out what the fuss was.

Annie - you should go to Browns if you can - we had a great meal (lemon sole and crab; belly pork; rhubarb and elderflower crumble for me; scallops, steak and chococate fondant for Euan) - the flavours were all very well judged.
J
x

Inthemud said...

Ah how sweet! Lovely pic of hen and chick! Hope all is well.

Pondside said...

What a treat to have a new chick! We have two broody Barred Rocks but no action yet.

Gigibird said...

I love the photo Jane.
The thought of having fresh eggs laid by my own hens is on my wish list.
The range cooker sounds great - no wonder you had a great Birthday:)

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the hatchling, I'm with you when it comes to the cockeril situation.

weirdbunny said...

She is adorable !!!! We only have on cockerel, of our non eaters and he's a nasty peice of work. In fact I'm going to have to swap him, as he won't let Gwenny go past him. He even tries to attack me occasionally. He certainly thinks he's the boss.