January 22, 2008
Baby chicks come of age and are now at point of lay
Our baby chicks are almost eighteen weeks old now and not really babies at all anymore! The two hens, Amber and Velvet are now officially “Point of Lay Pullets”, which means that they will be laying their very first eggs anytime soon. Ordinarily, we’d be more than happy to have the extra eggs as, usually in the winter, egg production is markedly reduced. Unfortunately someone forgot to tell our other hens this fact! It has been a pleasent surprise to still be enjoying almost full capacity egg production (i.e. 3 or 4 per day!) from our gorgeous birds, despite the freezing temperatures and what seems to be constant icy rain.
It’s going to be tricky spotting exactly when Amber and Velvet do start to lay, as all the hens seem to have adopted a 
special area of their own in one of our barns as their new nesting area. Usually, each morning, they will all take turns to sit on any laid eggs and plop one out themselves. We could do with a webcam being honed in to see if either of the new chicks join in the morning ritual!
Our laying hens all produce very similar sized brown-coloured eggs. Maybe if we’re really optomistic, Amber and Velvet might surprise is with something a bit different, just to show us how unique they are!
Both of our young hens are still a little smaller than their older hen-house mates and have some growing yet to do. 
Primrose, our third baby chick, is gradually changing into a magnificent mini-me cockeral version of his dad, Tiger. Our concerns about infighting between the two cockerels are yet to be realised. Primrose seems to be happy having Amber and Velvet to himself and Tiger tends to leave them alone - he has five other girls to keep him occupied! We suspect feathers may fly soon if Primrose’s pending sexual maturity causes him to encroach on Tiger’s territory - we’re going to have to keep a close eye.
Despite Primrose’s less than masculine name, he is starting to try and “cock-a-doodle-do” to emulate his dad’s decibel-crunching cries every morning..afternoon..evening…! It is rather a pathetic effort at the moment and he does have some serious competition, poor soul. His attempts rather remind us of a pubescent boy’s struggle to control a breaking voice, all to no avail!
All our chickens are looking a bit bedraggled, windswept and weatherbeaten at the moment. They can’t resist trying to dig up juicy worms and bugs in their waterlogged grassy run even when there’s a force 10 gale blowing outside. We’re sure they probably have the same opinion of our appearance really. Farm life goes on, whatever the weather and chickens poop won’t clean up itself. However, the reward of a delicious runny egg curtesy of our beautiful, friendly feathered friends makes it all worth while!
Diane
