Coming back from Haltwhislte Thursday I was confused to see a chick running round the garden. I checked the two broodies with their chicks and they were all present and correct. Earlier this week I had not shut the door fully on the mother hen who attacked Ian when he picked her and her chicks up, and had to face the full wrath of a mother hen who has very definite views of whether she should be picked up and certainly had no intention of my picking the chicks up. Bravely I managed to get them all back in their box but not without a fair bit of pecking going on. Anyway the chick disappeared into the nettles and I had a look and watched it disappear under TanTan. Later I saw TT with two chicks and she seems to be a mother. The chicks have their wing feathers which means they are about a week old. We have no idea where she has been brooding or where her nest was.
Last night TT then appeared with three chicks and this morning she had 4!! However these are not newly hatched and all with wing feathers meaning that they must be a week or so old. Where is she getting them from….?
One of our hens – Funny Grey Head, and another small white bantam have been brooding together and seemed to be sharing hatching duties. Until that is we caught FGH and put her in a box with 4 chicks leaving the other to look after the rest. She looked a bit annoyed as though FGH had not kept her side of the bargain. We must have 20 or so chicks and all I can hear is cheap cheap cheaping. Worryingly we cannot find Mummy1 who too will probably turn up followed by a trail of little chicks (unless it is hers that TT has been pinching).
Today we have had another busy day of viewings. Luckily we are now in a position of being a bit more relaxed as with three people with offers for our house, and willing to move asap when they have sold their own place, we are feeling a bit more secure with things.
Frustratingly we had expected Gareth at County Homes to put an ad in a Newcastle paper for Bridge End last week and that hasn’t happened. He has generated a lot of interest for Min House with an advert so we were very worried that nothing seemed to be coming through for BE – however the fact that he hadn’t advertised must have had something to do with it.
My spinning is coming along (slowly) although I have finished some wool which actually looks like wool and not like a tangled heap of fleece.
Stop press. TT now has 5 chicks and each looking about a week old – how many are we going to wake up to tomorrow….