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+--- Thread: Adding to the Flock. (/showthread.php?tid=504)
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 17-10-2020
Its like playing spot the difference with these chooks............there's a dark brown one, a paler brown one with a white bum and a scraggy necked who's lost all her neck feathers in moult - she's on the dark spectrum too.
Mrs Brown is like the paler one but she's easy to tell apart because she has no tail feathers (moulted).
So I could end up with 2 dark ones and 2 pale.
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 17-10-2020
...........and I'm just back from telling the girls a bedtime story...................but first, I had to put them to bed.
Mrs Brown was like a rottweiler at the entrance to the coop - she goes to bed early and stakes her claim to the dark corner, behind the perch, just inside the entrance. Every time I caught a chook and posted her through the entrance, Mrs B would extend her neck and make sure the new girl didn't want to stick around. So it was - 2 chooks in, turn round to catch the 3rd and the first 2 would be out again - all making a racket with their squawking.
As it grew darker, they moved around less and eventually clambered on top of the nest box where I was able to scoop them all up, put them in the coop and hastily shut the door to keep them in.
When its dark they sleep and don't annoy each other but I'll need to be up at first light to let them out again before they can see each other.
Where's my alarm????
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Bren - 17-10-2020
Sounds like fun and games veggie. Hope they behave when they have their photo shoot.
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 17-10-2020
Probably Little Miss Whitebum Bert will want to see the stylist to fluff up her feathers, Scraggy Neck will need a feather boa to disguise her baldness and Sticky up tail will need an extra gusset in her skirt, after she's asked "Does my bum look big in this?"
RE: Adding to the Flock. - JJB - 18-10-2020
Instead of an alarm there's always always .........a cockerel!
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 18-10-2020
No way, JJB.
My neighbour had one and it was a nightmare. Didn't really worry me but neighbours down the road would ask me if t was mine as they knew I had chooks. It was the ones that didn't ask that concerned me as they probably blamed me anyway!!
I've told this story before - about the chicken that had been dumped in the woods. I spent several days winning its trust before I cold get close enough to grab it and bring it home. A beautiful white hen with fluffy legs - it was a Silkie. I really hoped it would lay eggs - but nothing. Never mind, she was beautiful and very strokeable.
After a week or two, she started to utter these strange croaks as if getting warmed up for a grand recital. Suddenly, early one morning,it found its voice - it was a cockerel!!
Sounded more like a run down clock in need of a good wind than the neighbour's full volume cockerel.
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Mark_Riga - 18-10-2020
We had a trio of silkies years ago. I bought them at Beeston Market to use to hatch out other eggs that were often on sale there. They successfully hatched out guinea fowl, pheasant and ducks. The pheasants were scatty so I let them go in the fields and a stoat had the guinea fowl. When the ducklings hatched, the hen used to have a fit when they jumped into the drinking water bath for a swim. We had the ducks for a few years. However, when I tried with 3 goose eggs, the poor bird struggled to cover them and eventually got off squawking after about 25 days. I don't think she ever went broody again.
A lad at work decided to get a cockrel but he just liked the chat up line. He was Welsh from Connah's Quay.
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 18-10-2020
My neighbour liked to tell everyone about his "cock" so much so that I bought him a packet of https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/259346827?selectedUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontent.api.tesco.com%2Fv2%2Fmedia%2Fghs%2F8f6d59aa-c9ae-427b-aaa5-c067025b8af6%2Fsnapshotimagehandler_1929544687.jpeg%3Fh%3D540%26w%3D540
Can't imagine going into Tossco and asking the assistant where to find it.
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 19-10-2020
Today's news as posted on the Cluckingham Palace Gate.:-
We are pleased to announce that we have been delivered of another 2 eggs today.
We believe them to be the offspring of Sticky up tail Bert and White bum Bert.
Scraggy neck Bert is still Scraggy and in waiting for her new clothes to be sent by HM's Couturier.
RE: Adding to the Flock. - Veggie - 20-10-2020
Big Day today - for the 3 Berts and for me.
We had a Day Trip to the Old Run on the other side of the garden to their Home Run.
There's that "Heart in Mouth" feeling when you open the gate and let them out.............which way will they go? Will they scamper off in all directions or stick together?
Luckily, their training to the sound of the Shaken Corn Container and my laughable imitation of a chicken seems to have worked and they followed me, without too much deviation into the Old Run where a fun time was had by all...........until it rained when I moved them back under cover.
So far so good. All settling in well together, not too much henpecking and they're learning the routine. They sing well too.