Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

Frugaldom

Exciting news, Katharine! You should maybe pop a couple of eggs under your broodys to make sure they're going to stay sitting until you get the Dorking eggs. Good luck! Will be eagerly following the progress.

Mine aren't laying too well at the moment, I'm sure it's to do with all the miserable, dull, wet, windy weather we've been having. I'm down to 2 or 3 eggs a day from 5 of the 6 hens (1 has the newly hatched chicks.) And they are so fussy! They are completely wasting the layers pellets by either ignoring them or throwing them out and trampling them into the ground! They'd rather chase one another around the garden for a snail than eat proper hen food and there's no way can I get them to eat the veggie scraps, yet they'll happily munch whatever veggies they can reach if they're growing anywhere. My lot need training in chicken etiquette so they know it's impolite to refuse a meal once it's prepared and served up to them. :rotfl:

Any word about your Black Rocks, egfcomps?

Primrose

Please do keep your chicken updates coming. Would love to keep them but regular absences do not permit so I have to appoint myself a "proxy" owner by hearing about all your activities.

Katharine

Mine are the same with food, they have little insterest in layers pellets, and certain veg, I think they are smart enough to eat when they need tho.

That is good advice Nykmedia. But I don't think I need too really with mine, they sat for a month with nothing under them before. They will hopefully prove themselves very useful in years to come if I can stick various eggs under them to hatch, saves money on an incubator.

I'm wondering how many eggs to get I'd like to try to end up with at least 3 hens and a cockrel, I'm guessing 6 eggs would be cutting it very fine? I'm hopeing with Dorkings being a rare breed that I would be able to rehome the cockrels rather than have to dispatch them, what do you think? Also of my girls I'm wondering who to use, there is mum whos obviously has done it before so I think shes a safe bet, little bantamesque Angelina whos feisty, and Kylie and Kiera who I usually have to turf out at food time. I thought chooseing two would save 'putting all my eggs in one basket' while hopefully the other two would get back to laying sooner. Although I'm sure the others will nick/sit on the eggs when they get up to feed anyway.

lindens

My white sussex is broody again today ..grrrr... she was broody last month as well. She moulted half the winter and it has still not grown back, so she looks really scrawny what with moulting for 2 months and then being broody twice in quick succession after wards. She is my most troublesome hormonally, she sometimes lays the most ginormous eggs too.
I agree I think the wet weather makes them miserable ( well if they are anything like me anyway....)

tudorfan22

just thought id say i love this thread! i have 4 ex batts of my own and hoping to get 4 more, will sit down with a cuppa tea and read from the beggining - wish me luck!

DON79

Hi everyone, just thought would pop up a picture, this is not actually one of my new hens but is the exact same almost, brown and white hybrid apparently!

Also, just as a query, our Rhode Island Reds, two are laying but they lay different eggs! Is this normal??? One lays almost a pure white egg and the other lays a real dark brown egg? Why is that?

Thanks, Donna

julietiff

tudorfan22 wrote: »

just thought id say i love this thread! i have 4 ex batts of my own and hoping to get 4 more, will sit down with a cuppa tea and read from the beggining - wish me luck!

We have 4 ex-batts too, would like more but hubby wants to wait:rolleyes:
Ours will eat almost everything but turn their beaks up at apples, love
veg peelings though

Frugaldom

Hi Don, I think the egg colour for RIR can be anything from tinted through to actual brown and it's an individual hen thing. At first, I was able to tell who was laying where because of the different shades of eggs but now I'm stumped as just collected 3 eggs virtually all the same colour. It seems that they can change the shade of the shells afterall, I thought once a brown egg layer, always a brown egg layer. (Shows how much I know! :rolleyes:)

It has actually brightened up a bit here and it makes everyone so much happier. It's not exactly sunny, but we've had dry blustery spells enough to dry the washing and get the grass cut, which the hens LOVE! 3 eggs today, so far, but one of them was retrieved from the duck house, where Mrs Brown decided it was easier to find peace from the ducklings - who are patrolling the hen house at the moment! :rotfl: Going to try and get a photo of the littlest chicks and will post if I can get them all in one shot.

I like the hybrids - when I started keeping hens in 1985, the hybrids were Light Sussex X RIR and the ex-batts were ISA Browns (now known as Hubbards, apparently). They used the LS x RIR basic breeding so they could tell the sexes at hatching - all the plain white/yellow chicks were cockerals.

Katharine

Sweet! I've just spoken to my chicken woman and I'm going to get a dozen mixed eggs including dorkings and two different colours of Maran, I was so excited I can't remember but I think copper and blue were mentioned! She didn't want anything for them but I insisted so were doing a swap eggs for rhubarb. I love swapsies!

steady__eddie

"3 eggs today, so far, but one of them was retrieved from the duck house, where Mrs Brown decided it was easier to find peace from the ducklings"

More years ago than I care to remember when I used to keep bantams, I would let them out every morning before I went to work. Fortunately we were not troubled in those days by squirrels or magpies and the c0ck could be relied upon to see off any cat who was foolhardy enough to stray into the garden. When I returned home in the evening it would require at least half an hour to find the eggs which they had laid that day, you just would not believe the places where they "went to work". In the privet, under the shed and once I saw one in the spouting of the kitchen as I was looking out of the bedroom window. Obviously the nest boxes were just considered to be designer furniture.