My Welsummers arrived on a train as day-olds in a cardboard box, and I collected them from Diss station ... happy days!
💡 have you got or can you borrow some bantam hens? Then you could send for some hatching eggs ... we used bantams to hatch our replacement Marans as we had a Cuckoo Maran cockerel who ran with the flock.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks for the thought @Dovefromabove, but we are beyond all that! 😅 We sold our incubator a few years ago - I used it with my nursery/reception class and at home. We found, especially with the Welsummers, that we had far more cockerels than we wanted - usually about 7 cockerels from the 9 eggs that hatched! One year, as we didn't want any more chickens, a parent offered to take anything that hatched as it was a shame for the children to miss out on the experience ... and later had the nerve to complain because they were all cockerels. 🤷🏼♀️ We are on the 'waiting list' with a local breeder now, so fingers crossed for next year!
the indoors bit doesn't much surprise me as they are so tame around here. But getting in upstairs and the taking of a rabbit indoors amazes me. I've not heard of such a thing in real life.
I had assumed the horror stories of foxes taking newborns were Daily Mail fantasies.
the indoors bit doesn't much surprise me as they are so tame around here. But getting in upstairs and the taking of a rabbit indoors amazes me. I've not heard of such a thing in real life.
I had assumed the horror stories of foxes taking newborns were Daily Mail fantasies.
Misguided people feed them, not understanding that this leads to bolder and bolder behaviour … foxes are opportunist hunters … doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Yes, we had Light Sussex hens in the past - the cockerel was lovely ... until my husband bought new wellies, after that he was a sod - I couldn't even go near the fence without he would throw himself at it!😳 From then on I would follow close behind my husband when we went into the paddock. After being 'trapped' in a chicken coop and attacked by a giant Cuckoo Maran cockerel many years ago, I have a real fear of the 'nasty' cockerels! Our most beautiful and tame cockerels over the years have been the Welsummer and a Pheasant Fowl Cockerel - the first was eaten by a fox and the second died of old age. 😌 We used to eat the cockerels when we had too many but as we have got older, we don't have the will to kill them (that's the royal 'we', of course)! I remember my husband went out to kill one and came back empty handed - he couldn't do it.
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💡 have you got or can you borrow some bantam hens? Then you could send for some hatching eggs ... we used bantams to hatch our replacement Marans as we had a Cuckoo Maran cockerel who ran with the flock.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We are on the 'waiting list' with a local breeder now, so fingers crossed for next year!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We used to eat the cockerels when we had too many but as we have got older, we don't have the will to kill them (that's the royal 'we', of course)! I remember my husband went out to kill one and came back empty handed - he couldn't do it.