Along time ago, in a galaxy far, far away both Vonnie and myself dreamt of keeping chickens and maybe owning and running a wee croft somewhere. Many millions of years later we bumped into each other and ended up getting married with a family, a car and a huge mortgage to pay every month.
One of the many ways we came up with to help pay for this expensive lifestyle was to seriously consider the chicken thing. It started with an incubator and a bunch of eggs and now theres no end in sight.
Currently our chicken runs take up the bottom corner of our garden. Whilst they are functional they certainly aren’t finished. We still have a roof to put on them and in fact we’ve only just finished leveling off the ground in one of them so that the chickens can’t escape! We have one coop that those that stay out overnight share although the younger chickens get split up during the day for now. I’m currently building another coop to take all the youngsters so hopefully the house sharing won’t go on for much longer.
Currently we have the following:
Scots Grey – ‘Mac’
One of the local chicken keepers very generously gave us a couple of chickens that were almost POL. Mac was one of them. Yet to get any eggs out of her right enough though. I wasn’t aware how rare Scots Grey’s were until I researched them a bit more and we now have another 6 eggs in the incubator thanks to my wife and a free Ebay voucher.
Silver Laced Wyendotte bantam – ‘Bunty’
Another of the chickens that Matt gave us. Bunty is a real athlete. I’ve had many pets over the years and in my entire life I’ve never had one that was so hard to catch. She’s a wee bossy-boots as well and seems to fit the bantam stereotype well.
Faverolle
Of all the Faverolle eggs we placed in the incubator only one survived. Thankfully it was a hen though! As with all the chicks we’ve still to name them so any suggestions are welcomed.
Vonnie has also laid her hands on another 4 Faverolle so they are in the incubator with the Scots Greys.
Silkie
We managed to hatch two Silkies from our incubator but unfortunately one of them had a lame leg and just wasn’t able to carry on. The other has gone from strength to strength and I’m still amazed at their black skin and barbless feathers.
Peking bantam
We were a bit luckier with with these as two of the eggs hatched but one was a cockrel which Vonnie managed to rehome rather than let it grow to eat at a later date. I think we’d need a few bantams if we were going to eat them as they are tiny! She is also the only chick that will peck at you when you pick her up. Classic ‘wee man’ syndrome there I think. As with the Faverolles we have a couple more eggs just placed in the incubator so fingers crossed.
Buff Orpington
Vonnie picked up 2 3-week old chicks recently on a trip back down from Aberdeen. Already one of them has escaped from the run and had a run in with our neighbours do before hiding inside the grounds of the electrical substation at the bottom of our garden!
Indian Runner Ducks
Vonnie ordered these eggs ages ago and I forgot all about them. As the number of chickens increased I was really wary about getting ducks as well. We’ve now got 2 of these wee blighters and they get on swimmingly with the Orpingtons in the brooder at night.
