Brooding

So a couple of hens have gone broody.
We've put one in a broody box . Heres the box

If you remove the lid

There are some eggs

The hen is taken off and given some space, food and water,  twice a day.

They will sit for 3 weeks .
 Watch this space

Gallussian resuscitation

The latin name for the domestic fowl is gallus gallus domesticus

its time to move the mother and the chicks to the outside run. So 7 have hatched. And when we looked ,the last one was half in and half out of its shell. 

What to do ? Put it on the grass and hope the mother would  keep it warm whilst it escaped from the rest of its shell and  then look after it or help it a bit. So we decided to help it a bit. 

In a plastic bowl floating on hot water ( to keep it warm) , gently removing the rest of the shell and then keeping it warm whilst it dried out.

And then successfully resuscitated  it was returned under the hen and , at the last look, was  starting to explore its new home  .

Emma and Nick

One of the hens ( named Emma) went broody and so was sat on a clutch of eggs, aiming to replace the ducks that are taken by otters (or, seeing how they go exploring,become roadkill) and to replace the laying hens as they get older and stop laying. Due to a bit of problem, they got cold half way through  and we werent sure that the chicks had survived and would keep on developing .

But one did.
So the mother  has one chick.
It has been named Nick. Better hope it is male.

And we wait for another one to go broody

53

When a hen has gone broody , we have sat her on some eggs, 9 for the bantams and 11 for the larger hens. A clutch has ranged from 4  hatching (out of 9) to 10  out of 11.
The days are getting shorter  so we are unlikely to have any more going broody this year.
The mother and 10 chicks have been moved from where they hatch to the area we have netted to let them grow on a bit .

So the final count of hatched chicks is 53.  Some will be sold as Point of Lay pullets, some will be kept to eat the sheep parasites in the fields   and produce eggs to be eaten or sold, and some will, in due course, be converted to Casserole or Roast Chicken

Plus 7 , minus 1

And the latest broody hen has managed to produce some chicks.  She sat on 11 eggs and 9 chicks have emerged.   So here they are at 3 days old, following her round cheeping madly  at anything  unusual 






So after a  couple of days inside where they hatched, she and they have been moved to their new house and  run.  They all roost in the house and the chicks are still small enough that they roost under their mother.

So that is the  Plus 9 , what about the minus one  ?

On checking the food and water in the  run that is netted completely I found this .

I don't think  a predatory bird could have got in. And all the hens and chicks disappear into the bushes when anything suspicious (like a person) appears ,  so I assume it must have been a rat , and the chick was in the wrong place at the wrong time 

The latest Arrivals

A generous benefactor  donated some money after we lost the ducks to the otters as described here, here and here. As we didn't think we were otter-proof, we didn't at the time replace the ones that had gone  with more ducks, but instead got a couple of Pekin bantams, a male and a female  and named them  after our generous benefactors.

And a month or so ago, the female became broody and was sat on some eggs and stayed in the box for a month

 
And this came to fruition a couple of days ago.
The first two hatched ,

And after a couple of days inside they have been moved outside to the chick run. Enclosed and netted so they don't wander off or are predated by the local hoodies , or hen harriers or even a rat that might carry one off. It will allow them to grow on a bit have shleter with their mother and access to the grass and food, and when a bit bigger they will be moved to join the other chicks that we have hatched this year.

And then, 5 days overdue

We have some hens who are sitting on eggs as noted here. Due. date was 5 days ago .We've been looking  and nothing has been happening,  no cheeping heard, so this morning the plan was to remove the presumed infertile eggs, ban the cockerel who obviously hasnt been performing to the moorland from whence he will end up eventually  like this, and to return the broody hen to the field with the others.
And lo and behold, we have some chicks !

 So the hen gets to stay , the cockerel gets  reprieve and we wait and see what happens with the 3 remaining eggs.

And then there were 3

And 24 hours later there are 3.

There is another one on its way out

 and we can hear cheeping inside another egg. So that would make 5 all together.
Best wait another 48 hours and see.

2 so far

We looked this morning . 2 so far . One had been hatched a while and the other was very new and not yet fluffy.  And cheeping from within another egg.  So hopefully at least 3.

Watch this space !

Like London Buses

Emma , on eggs

We got some bantam hens back in March , because they tend to go broody readily so if we want to produce more hens then they are ideal .
Not quite so ideal are their eggs   which you can see here , but I suppose you cant have everything in one  hen.

One of the hens went broody a couple of weeks ago sitting on 11 eggs , and if all goes well   they should start to hatch next week.

And i the intervening couple of weeks   2 others have also gone broody.
So one is sitting on some hen eggs and the other is on  5 duck eggs.


And like London Buses arriving , three hens have   all gone broody at the same time.


That means that by the end of june we could have up to   20 additional chicks and some more ducks.

So watch this space !

Sitting

So Harriet the hen has gone broody and is sitting on 11 eggs.

Gestation for hens is 21 days .


So that make the Expected date of Delivery 2 June 2014.

Watch this space !

10 am update

7 live chicks, 2 unfortunately have died after emerging from the egg and the last egg has a small hole in it, so the chick is just starting to hatch,

and they are starting to get inquisitive

First arrival

 taken at 14.10 today

An antenatal crisis?

the broody hen was sitting on only some of the eggs this morning and the ones she wasn't on were cold.  Something disturbed her during the night. Mouse ? Rat ? - no signs of either , but that means very little.  She has been repositioned on all the eggs and continues to sit. We will see over the weekend if all the chicks have survived and how many hatch.

EDD 26th September

So we made the delivery suite ready

and used 11 eggs of our own eggs

and borrowed a broody hen from  Claire and Magnus

and we ( and she ) sits and waits