Bird Progress
Posted: Tue 13 November, 2007 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 3 Comments »We’ve had the chickens for a week now (and it looks like our timing may have been as piss-poor as ever – of which I’ll write more later. Turns out that for the moment we’re OK, well outside the 10km ‘surveillance zone’) and they seem to be settling in fairly well. They’re slowly learning to use their perch to sleep overnight, rather than the bloody nesting box, and we’ve (probably) still got a week before they start laying – that’s according to the people we bought them from, who should know rather more than we do on this subject at the moment.
All three seem to be OK though, and have been trotting about the run throughout the day, eating and drinking with no problem. I’ve got some odds and ends to do with them tomorrow when I’m actually at home during daylight hours (for the first time in nearly two weeks) including putting a cover over at least part of the run, so that food doesn’t get wet. And yes, take some photos of them as well.
Oh, and the names? Gladys, Flo, and Elsie. Or collectively “The Girls”. No particular reason – other than that all three are the names of our grandmothers. (One of mine shares the same name as Herself, so we’re not using that one, for obvious reasons) It seemed somehow apt.
and we’ve (probably) still got a week before they start laying
Hmmm… are they PoL young ones? If so, I’d put money on them not laying until the lighter days come back (unless you artifically boost the light to 12 hours per day by putting an LED or similar in their house). It’s to do with their hormones…
Just thinking – do you know about crock eggs (that is, hard egg-like relicas) for giving hens the idea about laying, ane where to lay? You can buy them or make them out of clay or even bread and water dough dried in a low oven.
Hmm, no, didn’t know about crock eggs – thanks.
As for the birds, yes, one is currently supposedly PoL next week, one two weeks after that, third two weeks after that. Supposedly. According to the people we got them from, anyway.
I think it was two weeks between each one. Might’ve been one week, I suppose. And we were told they’d start laying, but if they don’t do it ’til Spring I won’t object too much either.