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:

Incubator

I have always been fortunate to have a procession of broody hens with which to hatch eggs for me - they love it and do a brilliant job so have always been rather relieved that I've never had need of an incubator. However, I have just acquired a Brinsea Mini Eco from Flyte So Fancy as I have a rather sad reason for hatching some eggs. 

At the allotments, my plot runs alongside the boundary fence, and opposite me is a field with some beautiful Vorwerk chickens that I admire whenever I'm up there, a cockerel and four hens. The girls noticed one of the chickens was 'lying really still' and unfortunately the cockerel had died, having apparently been fine that morning according to one of the other people up there. 

Knowing that eggs remain fertile for about a week after the hens have been mated, I took 7 eggs and ordered an incubator, as of course there's never a broody hen when you really need one...

I did also think it would be good to have one as a precaution and also to compare natural hatching with artificial. The chicks will be about ten days behind the ones currently under my broody Buff Sussex bantam but will be able to run together in a brooder once they've grown a bit. 

So, fingers crossed for a decent hatch. I met the gentleman who owns the hens and he's very happy to exchange the eggs for a cockerel, which is a great deal as far as I'm concerned as I've got quite a few cockerels already. The hens are beautiful though so I'm looking forward to seeing how they get on. 

Meanwhile Beatrice is sitting patiently with the odd hour off for a preen and a bathe and a peck of grass.

New Hens

After a few abortive trips to poultry shows and sales to source some traditional utility breeds, I found a place in Canterbury, Kent, who could supply me with some new birds. It was only a two hour drive and the weather was kind so apart from a few erm, domestic issues it was a pleasant journey through the Weald.

Perched on top of the North Downs, the farm had over 300 breeding birds of all different types, but I chose 3 Welsummer hens (2014 hatch) and 2 Buff Sussex pullets at 8 weeks old. The hens look a bit ragged having been in the breeding pen for the last couple of months but I'm hoping that with some grass and sun on their backs (that won't happen today, looking out of the window!!) they'll feather up and get some colour back. Henry the Welsummer cockerel seems rather nonplussed at his sudden increase in harem, especially as he seems to have the hots for nextdoor's Amber Star hybrid who shamelessly flirts with him through the fence. Anyway, I'll be looking to hatch some eggs as soon as I have a broody hen so that I can sell the pullets or keep some as replacements. Eventually I'd like to have only traditional breeds rather than hybrids so that's the master plan. I also collected some Light Sussex pullets and a cockerel for my friend who lives up the road so there is the potential to swap boys to disperse the genetics a bit.

Buff Sussex pullets in the puppy crate

Welsummer hens

Fermented Feed for Chickens

Recently I've been discovering the benefits of cultures and after reading this blog - naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.co.uk - I thought I'd expand the fermenting residents of my kitchen to include some corn and mash for the hens.

Basically, I had a couple of spare calf buckets (I have an obsession with buckets) so I put a couple of scoops of mixed poultry corn in one, standard layer's mash in the other and filled them up with tap water. I gave them a good stir about 5 times that day. The following day the water was cloudy so I gave it a stir whenever I walked past and by the fourth day the corn and mash buckets looked cloudy and foamy respectively. Both smelt vaguely sweet and sour which is the classic lactic acid bacteria aroma so I felt confident that the buckets were preserving the contents well.

Using a plastic sieve for each feed, I use a portion of the mash in the morning, mixed with dry layer's mash to form a crumble, and in the afternoon I feed a portion of the fermented mixed corn again, mixed with a bit of dry mash to soak up the excess liquid:

Mmmmm (if you're poultry)

Well, the hens go mad for it! They are tucking in really well in the morning and afternoon and are rather snooty about eating the pellets which I give them in between times for ease and in case someone else needs to feed them (should I do something radical like go out for the day) so I've been really pleased. I top up the buckets with corn or mash and water and the mixture perpetuates itself. As long as there's always a layer of liquid over the feed it will not go off as the population of good bacteria keep the bad ones in check.

A word of warning: I discovered my dog rather likes the liquid so I have to keep the buckets covered with an old plate rather than the tea-towel I was originally using as he could push that out of the way and get his nose in.

I also feed it to the ducks and although they don't quite know how to handle mash as they dabble in their water bowl then back to the feed bowl and I end up with two bowls of slops...

The next thing I want to try now that the weather has warmed up is some sprouted greens as being on mulch the hens are reliant on their daily leg-stretch in the garden for some greenery.

Mouse Nest

Rodents are proving to be a bit troublesome this year. It was warm enough (about 15°C) to properly take the lid off of the hive with the mouse nest and remove the squatters. They'd made a lovely cosy nest on top of the crownboard in the WBC:

Two mice were in there but they skidaddled off having given me a bit of a hard stare for destroying their home. The weather is good enough now though and there are plenty of other places for them to live so I wanted to see what damage they'd done, having not had this issue before. Thankfully they don't seem to have ravaged their way through the hive:

The bees didn't seem remotely perturbed by the mice and apart from giving me a bit of a talking to about taking the hive apart they carried on calmly. I've clearly forgotten how to keep a smoker alight  over winter which didn't help! Having left all the honey on after taking a  bit in July, there was still loads of food which was great to see and hopefully will give the colony a positive start to the season.

I blocked the entrance with some bits of frame that were lying about (doesn't pay to be too tidy) but I'll get some proper blockers for this hive. The bees happily carried on bringing in pollen so I'm hoping the mice won't take up residence again...

Mulch

I struggle with February. Considering it's the shortest month, it can go on, and on, and on.....

Not helped by the weather. I'm definitely at the 'outdoorsy' end of the spectrum and go just a little [more] bonkers with too much rain-induced incarceration. It was drying up quite nicely then a weather front strolled by and flattened all the crocuses and turned the garden back in to a swamp.

The poor hens. I've had a bit of a sad time these last few weeks on the poultry front, having lost Esme to rat attack a few weeks ago, then Peggy to a kidney infection last week, then my other Buff Sussex bantam Gloria to another rat a couple of days ago.Two of my layers are going to friends of my parents as they recently lost two of their free-range hens to a dog attack.

However, it's a good time to take stock of things and given the state of the ground, no bad thing that the coops are rather sparsely populated. I asked my local tree surgeon if he had any spare chipped waste; he did and kindly dropped off a half load:

All seven runs now have a deep layer (about 4-6") of mulch. There are some laurel prunings which concerned me but having watched the hens closely as they scratch around, they've not been eating any of the material, just pecking about. My hens are experienced rangers and foragers so I'm presuming common sense will prevail. In my investigations as to toxicity of plant material and chickens, I was surprised at the number of things undesirable or even downright dangerous that my hens seem to eat without a problem.

So, with spring around the corner, and the promise of restocking with some traditional utility breeds and rearing some chicks from my remaining Buff Sussex bantams now that Beatrice is laying, I'm not feeling too bad about my recent losses.

Beeees!

Mild temperatures and a breath of warmth in the winter sunshine was enough to bring the bees out for a much-needed wing stretch. Some of the hives are very quiet, others more active. It's always a worry at this time of year as to whether the bees are ok and because I leave my colonies to lead their own lives with minimal physical intervention on my part, it's hard to sit back and just watch. I am always surprised at how well the bees fare and despite the portentious emails from the BBKA about starvation at this time of year, I assume that if the last honey I took was in early August - and even then, just the top box or a few of the capped middle frames - then they should be fine without supplementary feeding. Taking the lid off to put food in expels all the precious warm air that the bees work hard to maintain so I prefer to keep my fingers crossed and pre-empt winter stores problems by mindfulness in the preceding summer with prudent honey harvesting. It's still a difficult time though and the sound of buzzing is so welcome on a mild January day!

This is one of the busier colony and was enormous
going in to the winter

These bees are checking out an
empty hive

This colony was a bit quieter