I’ll start with a sentimental picture of adorable fluffy chicks, so that everyone can say, “Aaaaah”.
But the point of this post is simply to show eggs as they hatch. I managed to record all of the final four of our hatching eggs. Two on Friday lunchtime, one late afternoon, and the final one on Saturday morning at about 8am.
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It’s been three long weeks since we put the eggs in the incubator to hatch, and two weeks since we candled them for fertility, which brought the numbers down from 17 to 8.
I haven’t messed with them since then, and just let the incubator do its work. Every hour the eggs were turned, to the accompaniment of a little happy egg turning tune. Then on Tuesday evening, the incubator switched into hatching mode. The egg turning mechanism switched itself off, the temperature dropped half a degree, and the humidity rose to 60% to emulate the conditions for hatching under the broody hen. Friday (today at the time of writing).
Thursday evening, a day ahead of schedule, this little chap was born.
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged brooder, chick hatching, hatching eggs, incubator, Ixworth chickens
Well, we candled our eggs after 8 days. I suppose that it depends whether you’re a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty sort of person as to whether the results were good or poor. Of our 17 eggs, 8 are developing normally.
I’m afraid that I’ve rather neglected the blog in recent weeks, so this is something of a catch-up. The snow and very cold nights inhibited the other two hens from coming into lay, so we still only have senior hen laying at a steady rate of two eggs every three days. The much milder weather that followed the wintry spell hasn’t yet persuaded either of the others to start again, although all three are the object of much attention from the cockerel.
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged chicken keeping, Ixworth chickens, snow chickens, woodchip chicken run
Well, it’s finally happened. The chickens are coming back into lay, and on Saturday, we got an egg.
The first egg of 2012 in the nestbox
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged breeders pellets, eggs, Ixworth chickens, layers pellets
And so, the new year being a time for firm resolve, Chicken Project 2 is under way. We’ve been extremely pleased with our Flyte so Fancy house and run, and we’ll need another one alongside the first.
Here’s the site:
Looking from the south at the empty bed that the new run will occupy
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged chicken house, chicken run, Flyte So Fancy, foxproofing, Ixworth chickens
We had a lot of trouble trying to introduce the chickens to a treadle feeder. The one that we first bought was a cheapy – around £40. The idea of a treadle feeder is that it keeps the food clean and dry, and doesn’t present a temptation to vermin, while still making the food instantly available to the chickens.
You can see it in the picture below.
aka the National Federation of Poultry Clubs Championship Show. I know that we’d only recently been to the National Show, but we were keen to further our knowledge, and the Fed is if anything even larger than the National.
And another jolly nice day it was. It was very similar to the National, about which I’ve recently written, so this entry is more of a story in pictures …
The entrance to the show, not yet busy as we arrived
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged Derbyshire Redcaps, Federation Poultry Show, Ixworth chickens, Lincolnshire Buffs
The end of November normally marks a visit to the NEC for the Motorcycle Show, but this year we went to the National Poultry Show instead, because of our new interest in chickens.
What a super day out. We arrived in time for the opening at 10am, and didn’t leave until chucking out time at 5pm. This could easily become a diary fixture.
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Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged Andy Marshall, Ixworth chickens, Martin Smith, National Poultry Show, Svart Höna
We’ve swapped the chickens’ free range area from the pumpkin bed to an area under the fruit trees.
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged chicken keeping, free range chickens, Ixworth chickens
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