Private: Introducing – Thing & Kebab
April 2nd, 2007 - Posted in Blackball, chickens - by Brendhan|
Since our last blog we have had two new arrivals here in Blackball:
As you will see they learnt very quickly that their mother (adoptive) is there to entertain as well as feed and warm them. They are probably going to end up with very strange psychology as they will only grow to about half the size of their mother and will have very fluffy feathered bodies and legs.
We have duly named them Thing and Kebab.
Of the ten eggs we put under the hen one was born and then squished (we don’t think she has hatched any eggs before and it is fairly common for the first chick born to be sat upon). Another was fully grown but never hatched out, either because she left the eggs to take care of her 2 live hatchlings and it got too cold or because it didn’t have the strength to break the shell. The rest didn’t develop at all which we have put down to the cold snap and too much disturbance early on.
The chicks are a week old now and have started to learn that the world is a 3 dimensional place – they are jumping on and off the low branches on our grape vine and flapping their wings madly.
Other chicken news is that I eventually mananged to stop the 2 other broody chickens from hogging the nesting boxes without laying. This is done simply by cooling the chicken down as they heat up when broody so they can keep eggs at the right temperature for hatching. So, one night I shut the 2 broody chickens out of the chicken house overnight. They are fairly safe round here as they are 3 times the size (at least) of any predators and we have a wired enclosure around the chicken house.
Unfortunately I woke up at about 5am to hear torrential rain on the roof. So, on with the gumboots (wellies to all those in the UK) and raincoat and, lantern in hand, I trudged out to the chicken house. As I suspected the 2 chickens were still where I had left them in front of the door to the chicken house. They were fast asleep despite the rain and looked very bedraggled. I had to lift them out of the way so that I could open the door and then I carried them inside and put them on the roosting perch with the others. It must have been strange for them to wake up somewhere different from where they went to sleep but they got over it and are back laying again now. However, the arrival of the chicks has obviously triggered the mothering instinct as I now have another of them brooding.
