Christmas Day Babies

Our grumpy old bantam managed to hatch her babies… in the washing basket… on Christmas day.

Yes – we did try to move her before they hatched… no it wasn’t successful at all! Anyway – we decided to leave her alone until the babies appeared, thinking if we moved her after they were hatched she wouldn’t leave them. Which turned out to be correct. So after all four of the chicks appeared Jason picked up mummy (while wearing gardening gloves – she has a nasty peck on her!) and I collected up the chicks and off we went to the new house.

The chicks are hilarious looking little things – Aracana / Silkie crossed – some have little rock star hairdo’s.

We’ve also learnt another big lesson – don’t put eggs under broody hens that are sharing a nest. It seems to have resulted in a ZERO hatch rate! When they’re turning their eggs they seem to shift eggs from one hen to another and I don’t think egg sharing works! I noticed that sometimes Henny would have 12 or so eggs and Bossy would have the rest, then the next day Bossy would have 15 and Henny only a few. But a couple of days ago I noticed that there were also some eggs sitting *between* the hens, rather than under them and while they were warmish – they weren’t warm enough. I popped them back under one of the girls at the time, but I think at some stage most of the eggs have probably ended up on the outer and have cooled too much never mind – you learn from these things….