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Thursday 12 March 2009

chicks - sort of!

Well, we did get some hatching activity on Tuesday, and I spent all day from first light , popping out to see what was going on . I even had a friend who came to see the progress.It was so exciting ! Eventually one little chick hatched and I couldn't wait any longer so I gave the remaining eggs a little shake and got the dreaded glugging sound which indicates no chick. I gently cracked them one by one just in case I was wrong . 4 exploded with the most foul smell ( obviously they had fertilised and started to develop and then ...) and 2 weren't fertilised . I was disappointed but felt quite pleased with one little chick who was a Barnevelder . Next check of the day , and the clumsy hen had stood on the chick and it was quite dead ! 3 weeks of anticipation and ....nothing!

So i did what any self respecting chicken keeper does and bought 6 from somebody else , which had hatched that morning !1 is an exchequer leghorn , 3 are brown and stripey , so could be legbars or welsummers , and the last 1 is apricot and I hope is a buff orpington ... but time will tell. Anyway , the hen is proving to be a better mother to her adopted brood and they are very cute . I was tempted to try and pass them off as her original chicks for DH benefit ( he doesn't see the point of buying in more when some are due to hatch at school next week ) but Eliane was so shocked at this deceit that I came clean and he was pretty cool about it really.I shall take some pictures so you can see their development.

Oh , and I got my first 2 books for matings to Teifi Magic - the boy is set too work !!

2 comments:

Eliane said...

I wasn't shocked just gobsmacked that you thought you'd get away with it - I'm not very good at keeping secrets, leastways not from Tom. I'm envious! Though I still think he'd have worked something out when he saw your trouser legs wriggling.

Suzanne@ Panteg Alpacas said...

LOL, he might have worked it out , also , when he realised that we don't actually possess any of the breeds for which I now have chicks !!