Monday, January 21, 2008

New Chickens!

Thanks to Jane over at Snapdragons garden we now have 3 lovely new hens!

A friend of Jane's was selling some of their one year old hens so we bought 2 black rocks and a buff araucana. They are called Gerry, Gerry and Custard. This is because we can't tell the twins apart, and Custard is sort of custard coloured.

We were delighted that our old hen Omelet didn't try and murder the new hens. There was much flapping and squawking as they squared up to one another, but not really any vicious pecking as can sometimes occur. Omelet is definitely head of the new pecking order at the moment.

We were even more delighted that within 18 hours of arriving 2 of the new hens had laid us an egg! Custard laid the most amazing green egg, and one of the Gerrys laid a quite pointy tinted egg. Both were poached and eaten on toast for tea last night. Yummy!

(By the way, we couldn't get the Leghorn hens we had planned because they are dead. The chicken man called me to say that he had an infection in his flock and the pullets had died. It's a hard and precarious life being a chicken.)

3 Comments:

Blogger TB said...

So then, mixing unfamiliar hens would be initially similar to mixing new cats? It's interesting how the pecking order changes as a cat is introduced or removed. One of our cats "moved" to my sister's house. When this happened the two remaining cats, who would have nothing to do with each other, started warming up to each other. They aren't exactly bathing each other yet, but they can both be on the bed at the same time without a battle.

2:14 PM  
Blogger Primrose Hill said...

Ooh, your new hens sound fab Rach, I'm sure they'll all be best buds soon enough! Aren't the blue/green eggs fab, we've had a couple so far this year from our cream legbars, can't wait till we're selling them, our egg boxes are going to look super posh!!

Looking forward to our girly day out :)

L xx

4:16 PM  
Blogger Jane said...

Glad that you could get hens from Jane & Craig and that they are settling in well. C & J were here for dinner on Saturday and Craig couldn't get his mind rond the idea of blogging at all.
Odd to think we live near each other - small world.
Our poor hens hate this mud & rain - they are now living huddled in the broom bushes until it is time to go back to bed.

10:14 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Free Web Counters