Under normal circumstances, it is around this time of year when Chicken Corner takes the initial steps to "slowing down" (in every respect), as members focus on their transition into colder, wintry days (through a process otherwise known as "the Moult”). Additionally, the last of the youngsters have usually been sold and the majority take permanent residency to welcome in the new year.
Having set the scene effectively, allow me to introduce the destructive force confronting this ethos strongly upheld by the gang. For, as a result of the warm days this September-October period, even MORE members have joined because more hens than ever have adopted the ‘sitting’ position and gone broody!
How many hens went broody? 4 .. How many chicks hatched? 26 (!) .. I know, I know, it gave me heart palpitations when I worked out the maths as well! Now here’s the breakdown, 3 from a Light Sussex, 5 from a Buff Orpington, 6 from a red Pekin, and topping the leader-board was Gigi with 12(!!) partridge Pekins … Obviously proud yet (more-so) overwhelmed, I have decided to leave the large fowl families to their own devices; resting about the farm in various locations and pottering around the lawn and paddock at their own leisure. (A point to add is that strangely they never enter the orchard .. just something to ponder over when all I ever seem to go on about is ‘my little green world in the orchard’.. anybody else think this is ironic?? Perhaps not, just me).
Anyway, lets not get distracted .. back to the main discussion – the Pekins! Now they, on the other hand, have been moved into separate compartments in the shed to ensure their chicks’ safe passage through the first few weeks of life. They are all getting on very well (this sounds like a school report) .. showing encouraging interaction and engagement with others (too much? ..perhaps). Their first feathers are starting to grow and as a by-product, allows me to determine whether they are frizzle (feathers growing back-to-front) or simply normal. From what I can see, the majority are in fact Frizzle! So get your Sherlock Holmes hat on as you may have to decipher the puffball (not the fungus, but more a fluffy-fluff ball) from the frizzle pekin.
Although extremely cute, its undeniable that these families have indeed put the conventional routine of Chicken Corner in jeopardy.. but really, who likes ‘conventional’? I certainly don’t! Speak soon, Chicks! (That’s your new fan group name by the way).
Bye chicks! x
Written: 17th October 2018
