First Lot of New Chicks

Beatrice the bantam has been sitting calmly on her 5 eggs - she only got up twice but I did give the eggs a spray with lukewarm water on a number of occasions to increase the humidity. All went well and the eggs hatched so I have 3 Welsummer (or at least meant to be!) and 2 buff Sussex bantam chicks. One is actually Beatrice's chick, the other being Herbert's.

I put the eggs from my new Welsummer hens to hatch on the basis that they would be Henry's offspring but they aren't looking very Welsummer-ish, although I'm not sure how variable the colouration is...according to Google Images they're meant to be really stripy but two of them are golden. I thought/read that hens can be fertile for a week after they've been mated so a new cockerel needs over that to ensure any eggs are indeed his. My friend said she thought it was ten days, and I read in another book that it can be a month!! So, I'm not sure who the hens were running with before I bought them, or maybe Henry isn't a pure Welsummer after all. Sadly my new hens were taken by a fox so unless I raise some more from hatching eggs I'm a bit stuck with breeding more.

Anyway, after the sadness of losing hens, chicks are always a welcome sight! Cue lots of pictures of the little angels: