Some photos

Spring has sprung!

And the girls started laying again ridiculously early this year - January! Although Buffy did insist that she needed come inside and lay on the TV chest as it was far too cold outdoors. The things we do for a breakfast egg!

We lost a few over the winter - ginger has soem respiratory problems from which she never recovered and Blue, mum's Roo' blew it when on his final chance to stay alive he began to get human agressive.

So going into Spring we have..

Roger & Ruby (Gold laced Wyandottes)
Silber & Argento (Silver laced Wyandotte bantams)
Polski, Anja, Beaker, noname hen & noname roo (white crested black Polands)
Delia, OldSpeckledHen & Buffy (Sussexs)
Bella (Dark Brahama)
Betty (Jersey Gaint)
Jordan (Buff Orpington)
Butter (Silkie bantam)

plus the 4 ducks.

Will grab some pictures in the next sunny spell

Winter draws near...

And the girls stop laying! We're going into winter with a "modest" (!) 21 chooks & ducks. Not too bad, for us.

We dispatched our first excess rooster this week - not nice but a step in the right direction towards raising meat chickens

Some new additions...

Firstly a pair of 10 week old silver laced Wyandottes to finish off my breeding stock for next year.

Rooster...half asleep

Pullet


And Dad's birthday present - a speckledy Sussex!

An update

Well some more ups & downs here in Wicklow. We lost Ginger, peacefully in her sleep for no known reason. We also lost a chick from both hatch 2 & hatch 3. On a good note we have homed all of Goldie's crossbred chicks to our neighbours. The Polish trio will go to the sales in Spetember as we reduce numbers for winter. Otherwise everyone is healthy & happy. I shall look forward to reporting on our first foray into the world of showing on Monday!

Hatch 3 - Silver Laced Wyandottes

8 Silver Laced Wyandotte bantams were set yesterday under "Ruby" our gold laced wyandotte - due date is 5th July.

Some more accomodation...

We spent yesterday afternoon constructing the 4th and (supposedly) final chicken accomodation. With several hatches and teh Guine Pigs vying for the out door brooder pens we decided to install a "Breeder" pen for raising on older chicks with a more long time view of being able to seperate out pure bred trios for eggs. The pen is located within the original chickenopolis and underneath the 1st storey deck for shelter.

Front view

Side on, the bench is the main chook populations favourite perch

The current residents
- Katie the buff Orp and brood.

Eggs galore & New pens

We having hatching eggs arriving - 8 Silver Laced Wyandottes and 6 "pot luck" eggs from pure pens of all sorts of breeds from Brahamas & Silkies to Sussex & OEG.

To accomodate the ever expanding collection we're constructing a breed pen which is about 8'x4'....watch this space

Our next arrivals

Will be hatching eggs from Wyandottes in either one of
or an assortment of the colours below...

Blue laced red

Buff laced

Silver laced

(Photos courtesy of www.featheriste.com and Shalom Sadon/Frank Lambert via Feathersite)

Buff Orpingtons

Jordan & Katie, the buff orps