Whilst most people are hoping for smarties or a kinder surprise in their easter eggs – we’re hoping for chicks and what we’re really hoping for are new girls who will lay blue and deepest richest chocolate brown eggs next year.
There is so much more to this poultry lark than you could possibly imagine!
Perish the though of walking into a supermarket and plucking a carton of eggs from the shelf – we like to do it the hard way! And why? The eggs from a truly free range hen are second to none in flavour and colour (this gives me further opportunity to boast of my Victoria Sponge beating all 8 others in the West Cornwall Spring Flower Show a few weeks ago. It was by far the most golden, had the best flavour and was beautifully moist too according to the judges!) The hens have a good happy and healthy outdoor life and we just like to produce as much of the food we eat as we can.
Buff Orpington cockerel enjoying swiss chard on Ring and Thimble patio. Thief!
So the story this year begins with a Buff Orpington crossed with Aracuana hen who went broody. This for the uninitiated means she took complete charge of one of the nest boxes, didn’t move out of it unless gently pushed (with one’s hand as far away from her beak as was possible) and the other girls popped in beside her and laid their eggs which much to her indignation we removed each evening. After 3 weeks of this I decided that I’d better let her sit on some eggs to hatch them and wishing to have some more coloured eggs especially to give our guests something a bit less run of the mill rang a friend for some fertile coloured eggs. The eggs arrived, kindly collected by a good friend in exchange for some freshly baked banana cake. The hen was duly moved to a house of her own with 4 ordinary brown eggs just to check she was till in the mood…………..huh she wasn’t having any of that ………….if she couldn’t be allowed to sit on her eggs in the big hen house then she wasn’t going to play the game at all.
Out with the incubator (a Christmas present for me from the family some years ago) and we’re listening to humming and rocking for 21 days as it’s in the corner of our dining room – a safe place we hope away from marauding animals!
All is well until Western Power turned off the electric for 7 hours for tree cutting near power cables. I forgot about the incubator until walking into the kitchen it was very quiet and I realised that this was the one thing that really wouldn’t survive with no power. Wrapped it in a blanket, 10 mins drive later and it was in one of the workroom ladies’ kitchen. She returned it next day when she came to work, all wrapped in a sleeping bag. So if they survived that little drama, are all fertile and of course female – we’ll be in business!
So wishing you All a Happy Easter and watch this slot! Will they or won’t they?
