I have too many threads running!

[Margaid]

I have too many threads open so don't know which one to update about losing my hens:

Daylight attack - fox, dog or buzzard?
Looks Like Henny's been taken
Incubating eggs that have been in the fridge
Poultry saddles are obviously indigestible

Thank you all for your messages of support.

I have the Welsummer cockerel (Cocky) two CLBs and two Exchequer Leghorns - I have now lost all four Welsummer hens.

Henny's last two eggs were put under a broody at my friends, with a few of her Houdan eggs to make a clutch. They are due to hatch Sunday or Monday. Just heard from my friend that the broody has eaten one of the Welsummer eggs - lots of yolk around so she thinks it may have got cracked and been infertile. I thought she was going to candle them but obviously she didn't (she's difficult to get hold of, mobile doesn't work at home and they often don't answer the landline, she works and they have 100 acres with sheep and cows so usually there's no-one around if I go there). Knowing my luck the other egg will be a cockerel.

Because my personal circumstances are changing, I wasn't going to hatch this year but couldn't bring myself to eat Henny's eggs so I haven't lost anything. They may both have been infertile as I don't think the cockerel had been treading her since we fitted the saddle and the eggs were laid 8 and 10 days respectively after the saddle was fitted.

I won't be replacing the hens as I won't have room for so many hens and may have to find a home for Cocky. A local member of the Welsummer club may have him if I can't keep him.

Egg production has dropped because (1) one of the leghorns is broody again, (2) one of the CLBs doesn't lay every day and (3) it's probably too hot. Cocky is returning to normal - I could tell he was about to have a go at me last night. I'd given them their mealworms but went into the enclosure later without their fruit - big mistake. I'd gone to see if the broody, who had been released from the sin house, had gone back in the nest box - she had so she's in the sin house again.

 

[Marigold]

Hi Margaid, that all sounds very complicated! If you are going to move house, sad though the circumstances are for your chickens, the fewer of them you still have, the less difficult it will be. If the remaining egg does hatch, you will have the problem of raising a single chick apart from the rest, or getting another chick to grow up alongside her, of course. If Cocky is rehomed, you will still have four nice girls, so if the egg doesn't hatch maybe that will be for the best anyway.

 

[Margaid]

If it's a pullet I'll have one of the others from the clutch she's sitting on so there would be two new hens. If it's a cockerel I'd try and rehome it as Cocky is from a dark egg laying strain and, although unrelated, both Henny and Cocky came from a good breeder. I could easily be here for another three months so I'm trying not to cross bridges. One of my potential new neighbours has a small field in which they were hoping to put sheep, it's behind the house I'm buying...

 

[chrismahon]

Sounds terribly complicated Margaid. Like us, I guess you had hoped as time went on life would be easier. Alas, it seems to get more complicated. I thought our last year in the UK was bad but in some respects the first year in France is worse. Except of course the weather is better and no crime (and you can't hear what derogatory things people say as they speak a language we don't understand).

I think we probably need some hatching eggs, because the sight of little chicks always brightens things up.

 

[Margaid]

Just had an email from my friend. 3 of the 4 Houdan eggs she put under the broody have hatched but Henny's second egg was completely clear. I think the poultry saddle had put Cocky off - I don't remember seeing him tread her after it was fitted, apart from making a couple of half hearted attempts.

There is always the possibility that he's firing blanks of course and the only way to be sure would be to incubate some eggs - but they'd be Welsummer/CLB or Welsummer/Exchequer Leghorn crosses if we actually hatched them. I don't want any more hens at the moment and Nettie has just hatched a dozen Houdan eggs in the incubator as well as the three that hatched today so she doesn't want any more either.

I'll just have to be content with the three new kittens -all male. Just hope mum doesn't get in kitten again before I can get her spayed - it's what happened last year!