Expensive day in the Horndean Hens household :(

Today was certainly not my favourite day of the year so far....We just forked out for a new washing machine after ours decided to die last week and we're starting to run out of clothes...Still, it's all be delivered, I've plumbed it in and we're on our second wash now, so look forward to not worrying that I've not got many socks left or thinking of doing some hand washing!..Just to top the day off, with today being the last day of the month, I've made sure all our business accounts are up to date, and I'm affraid to say, that for the first month since Horndean Hens became a  legitimate full time business, we have made an operating loss (of course, over the tax year, it's not going to be much of a loss, but a loss all the same), 2 things I blame on this. 1. Our success over November and December had left us is very little stock to sell. 2. Spending £200 on bids for our breeding groups in the last 4 weeks has certainly turned a small profit into a small loss.


On the chicken front, we've now moved the Cuckoo Pekins outside, leaving us with 2 spare cages on the shed for young growers. Not much else done really and nothing new laying, although it does look like the Red Pekin will be coming into lay soon.

Will be picking up around 40 youngsters tomorrow evening, so Saturday will be a day or sorting them out, deciding what we're keeping and assessing and advertising any that are ready to be sold, so look at for a few adverts over the weekend.

Decided to sell a couple of our Light Sussex bantam girls

I have decided that I will sell 2 of our Light Sussex Bantam girls, as they are too small to go in with our breeding pair, one is already laying and the other isn't far off. We have Light Sussex Bantam chicks in the brooders and will also be getting some more youngsters on Friday, so I feel now is the right time to sell these 2.

New chicks are happy in the brooder, now on shavings for the first time. They love to scratch around in it. The 7 week olds spent the day outside today and to get them used to it before permanently housing them outside at the weekend. One of the OEG girls did have a problem with her leg, so sadly I put her out of her misery, still have 5 girls and 1 boy for sale though. Also moved the Crele Pekins back outside, which frees up another pen in the shed for youngsters

Incubator 1 set, Incubator 2 candled

Well, as mentioned yesterday, I set Incubator 1 again last night. the list is:

9 Buff Pekin
4 Black Pekin
3 Lavender Pekin
5 Cuckoo Pekin
1 Silver Partridge Pekin
1 Gold Partridge Pekin
1 Mystery Pekin (was in the box with the Blues and Silver Birchin Pekins when I got back from Salisbury last weekend)
2 Millifluer Pekin (although I'm starting to think one of the OEG crept in there pen as there was a small gap between the pens that the OEG could get through
1 Light Sussex Bantam
3 White Yokohama Bantams

And today, I have added 1 Black Mottled Pekin (first egg laid by them this year).

I candled incubator 2 today, took 4 eggs out that seemed to have stop developing around day 6 or 7, they were: 1 Crele Pekin, 1 Silver Sebright, 1 Gold Dutch and 1 Buff Pekin.

I should be getting around 40 Growers on Friday Evening, so will have pics on here on Saturday, once they're all sorted out. Will also be baby sitter trios of Silver Dorkings and Croad Langshans, as I will be taking these to auction for someone in March,

Last chick out and 2 new Pekins :)

Woke up this morning to the last chick cheeping away in incubator 1, it hadn't even pipped last night when I went to sleep, to must have had an electric power egg tooth or something! It's another Crele Pekin, but only time will tell whether it's Crele or Gold Partridge, as with our pair, you should get 50% of each.

Also picked up 2 new Pekins today, both rather sweet, one lavender and one black. I've got to say thanks to Lou for bringing them this way for us. They've both settled in well and seem happy :)

 Eggs seem scarce again at the moment, wonder if it's to do with this cold weather we've been having again? All I got today was 2 Buff Pekin, 1 Cuckoo Pekin and a Light Sussex bantam (who hasn't laid for 3 weeks!). We also have another Call Duck egg, so have now put our trusty Silver Partridge Pekin in with some pot eggs to see if we can get her broody again, as the Pekin we put in already didn't seem interested at all and just wanted to get out. At least with the one we have in there now, we know she's been laying eggs this season and did briefly go broody until we broke her, so hopefully she will again and she'll hatch some Calls for us.

Incubator 1 is now cleaned out, disinfected, turned on and warming up ready to set some more eggs tonight. We have 30 to go in there, all Pekin except 3 of our Yokohama Bantam and the Light Sussex that laid today

I shall put a full list of what's going in there tomorrow (probably be one or 2 more eggs then)

Been working on the other halves website again today and it's nearly done now, just a few more pieces and it'll be ready to put online once we get the domain up and running :)

Chicks...bloody loads of 'em

Well, so far incubator one has yielded 25 chicks with one more to go (cheeping in the shell), everything that lasted to day 18 has hatched apart from 2 Legbars (Crele Pekin still to hatch), have moved them all down to the brooder in the shed and had a count up, we currently have 63 chicks in 4 groups ranging from day old to just over 7 weeks, obviously this will thin out next week as I should be able to sex the 4 week old Pekins and the 7 week old Old English Game Bantams are up for sale (6 girls and 1 boy). Next hatch is due on March 7th, so that's 11 days time, by which time, the 7 week olds will be outside and the 2 week old will be replacing them in their brooder, leaving brooder number 1 free for the next hatch...It's all a big chick merry-go-round.

Cleaned out the other 3 brooders today and also the Call Ducks house. Only had 2 eggs today though, 1 Cuckoo Pekin and 1 Black Pekin, still....I've got around 30 ready to go in the incubator tomorrow or Tuesday including 3 from our Yokohama Bantams :)

Done more work on my wife's website today, it's really starting to take shape now and on target to be completed by the end of the week.

Incubator 1 hatching

We've had 8 chicks out so far today.

2 Blue Wyandotte Bantams
3 Light Sussex Bantams
1 Legbar
1 Sablepoot
1 Buff Pekin

Plenty more are pipped, so expect more to hatch throughout the evening and tomorrow.

As mentioned a few days ago, I gave my 2 Poland boys a haircut today, didn't give them a full crop, just cut some feathers around there eyes, so they'll be able to see better and it also reduces the risk of eye infection.

One of our Call Ducks laid an egg this morning, not sure if it's the white or apricot as they are currently all housed together, so me being one for not wasting a single egg, have moved the Sablepoots out of the shed and put one of our Silver Partridge Pekin girls in there with 5 pot eggs to try and encourage her to go broody, so I can put the duck eggs under her, as I'm not keen on incubating them because it'll tie up an incubator for 26 days or so for half a dozen eggs (if they lay anymore) that may or may not hatch.

 The other ducks didn't materialise today, so not sure what's happening with them. If they do arrive, the pics will be posted on here.

Away from the chickens, I've been working really hard on my wifes website today. I've finally got the structure and layout how I planned it and have been working on the content. It should all be done in a few days

I am now officially mite and lice free

I had the lovely job today or powdering the birds for lice/mites. Needless to say, I had more powder on me than on the birds, so at least I am mite free. Pretty quiet day today with just 4 eggs (2 buff 1 black and 1 cuckoo Pekin). All being saved to go in Incubator 1, 1 egg in there had already pipped (Buff Pekin), so better get the brooder prepared tomorrow.

I've got some 7 week old Old English Game Bantam pullets for sale at £15 each, if anyone is interested in our, please email mike@horndeanhens.co.uk

Got some ducks coming tomorrow, so expect some piccy's of them in tomorrows blog

Here comes the cold again...brrrrrr

Make sure you have emptied your drinkers tonight, I've just been out to put the birds to bed and most of ours were half frozen already! Quite impressed with my Call Ducks...they actually put themselves to bed tonight, usually I have to chase around the garden after the apricot/saxony ones!, even the Turkeys went to bed on their own...Must be the cold!.

 

Not much chickeny going on here today, just a bit of cleaning out and moving the white and salmon Pekins as they like to jump the fence into the buff's pen. Polands seem to have settled in well, hopefully won't be too long before they're in lay. Need to stop turning Incubator 1 tonight and add water to get the humidity up, hopefully they'll be pipping on Saturday. I'll be picking up a lavender and a black Pekin hens on Monday, both very much needed to add to our breeding groups.

Spent a lot of the afternoon working on designing the website for my wife, I've got the final ideas now, just need to put them into place. I'm aiming to have it all done by the end of next week. I've also added the new groups to our website Horndean Hens

New Polands and a genetic mystery

We have swapped out Wyandottes for a trio of Polands today, very nice they are too, although Mr Poland needs a hair cut...so that's a job for me tomorrow. Have cleaned out the brooders and moved the 3 week old chicks into a new one to make room for the new hatches over the weekend. , Do have a bit of a mystery though, look at the pictures below:

Mummy

Daddy

Baby

Another baby!











All I can put it down to is that one of the parents was bred from a Light Sussex x Buff Sussex..Anyone have any suggestions as to how we have a Buff Sussex chick from 2 Light Sussex parents, we have 4 chicks from this group and 2 from the last group and all the other 5 are White. Lets see what happens when the next few hatch this weekend?

Incubator 2 - The candling results

Have just candled incubator 2 on day 5 (day 4 for the serama) and all our home laid eggs are fertile with the exception of 1 buff Pekin and all the cuckoo Pekin, have a new cuckoo cockerel now, so hopefully things will improve again, we have some hatched from the last cockerel, also some in incubator1 due to hatch on Sunday, so no idea what went on there?. Not sure about the crele Pekin eggs, they're quite mottled, so very hard to tell, have kept them in for a few more days. 4 of the 6 Dutch eggs are fertile, which is not bad for ebay egg, both Sebrights are fertile and atleast 8 of the Serama eggs.

With the weather drying out the garden over the last few days, I've finally managed to mow the lawn...Something I'd been hoping to do for the last few weeks!, not really much chicken stuff today, just tidying up a bit. We did however have an egg from our millifluer Pekin girls :)

Monday muck lol

Spent most of the day cleaning out, so another muck covered day, also managed to slice my hand with a scraper when cleaning off one of the perches. I've also moved the black pair of Pekins back outside with the other blacks now to make room to move chicks from brooder 2 into their cage later in the week, leaving brooder 2 free for this weekend hatch. Have just had a quick peek candle of a few of the eggs in incubator 2 and atleast 4 of the Dutch eggs are fertile, but looks like all the cuckoo Pekin are clear...good job I've now replaced our cock bird. Will candle all the eggs in there properly tomorrow.

Sadly lost our Silver Partridge boy this morning to (I think) a heart attack, he was getting on a bit and maybe just couldn't cop with moving out of the shed into their pen a couple of weeks ago, so now looking for a new boy to replace him as the only chick I have from them this year looks like a girl.


Had dinner at the in-laws  tonight...or the Bahama's as we call it...I think if you averaged the temperature of their house out over a year, it'd still come in way above the 30's. Dinner was lovely though and a nice break from us cooking and having to do all the washing up, the only downside was that I had to shut the birds up tonight by torchlight, which is a pain..especially when you have 3 call ducks hidden under one of the houses and won't come out!

Sunday.....Day of rest. I don't think so!

Had a busy day today, built a home for the Mandarins with the few bits of scrap wood I had lying around, it's not brilliant, but it's up high enough for them and hopefully they'll use it.

Other than that, mainly been cleaning out today. Just put the youngest chicks on shavings (I used rubber non slip mats for the first dew days), so they're happy scratching around in it. I took a few more photo's of some of the new birds.

Quite good on the egg front today, had an egg from the new Gold Partridge Pekin girl, The Silver Partridge and also one of the Yokohama Bantam girls, these are all being saved for incubator 1 when it's free in about a weeks time.

 I've just updated my accounts and the website, so that's it for chicken stuff today, I'm going to start work on designing a website for my wife, as her writing is really starting to take off with over 5000 of her stories downloaded in just over a month and a similar number of visitors to her blog: http://charmainmitchell.blog.co.uk/

Auction day = Tiring day!!!!!

At last I've got to sit down.....for the first time since 5:30 this morning, to say it's been a long day is an understatement, been a very good day though :)

Managed to get a few birds for our breeding groups (all Pekins) and a few others:

2 Silver Birchin Pekin Hens
2 Black Pekin Hens
2 Blue Pekin Hens
Pair of Cuckoo Pekins (much better quality cockerel than our old one)
Pair of Red Pekins
Pair of Salmon Pekins
Silver Partridge Pekin Hen
Gold Partrdige Pekin Hen
2 Silkie pullets
Trio of  Yokohama/Phoenix Bantams
Pair of Mandarin Ducks

Think that's it....

Didn't get home until around 2.30 then had to go straight out to buy the chicken food and shavings, then as soon as I got back, had to sort out the housing for the new ones by which time I'd sorted that out, it was time to put them to bed. Now that's all done, I plan on doing bugger all for the rest of the evening!!!

Yay...It's Friday

 Not much to report today. The birds have been enjoying the sun. So much so, that they seemed to forget to lay eggs!!! Hopefully a few days of this will dry the garden out a bit!. Finished setting Incubator 2 with 10 Serama eggs, 2 Silver Sebright and 1 Sablepoot + 1 Crele Pekin from our birds. So that brings the total up to 36, as I managed to drop the corner of the lid on the Lavender Pekin eggs :(.

Auction day tomorrow, so have been preparing our crates and carriers. Tomorrow morning will be the time for me to bid a fond farewell to our Shamo hen, as she's listed in the auction. She's such a sweet bird and I really like her, but Shamo's is not something I'd be breeding, so she's taking up valuable space here...she needs to go and find herself a husband. The Indian Game were also listed, but I sold them last week, so that'll be one empty pen.

Tonight, I need to fill in the forms for next months auction, as I'll be selling the Wyandottes and Old English Game. If they sell before, I have 6 young Old English Game girls that'll be ready to sell, so they'll go in the auction instead. I am hoping to get a few Pekins to get some of our breeding groups up and really need a Silkie and Silver Sebright girl to go with our lonely boys.. I also have my eye on a couple of other breeds I've not had before, so fingers crossed for that. Got to be up nice an early for it tomorrow and I would just like to publicly thank my beautiful wife for all the running around she does for me (I don't drive).

Incubator 2 hatch finished and set for the next lot

Sorry for no blog post yesterday, I've not been well. It's one of the downsides of being a poultry breeder I guess, doesn't matter how ill I am, I still have work to do. Incubator 2 hatched completed overnight, as I woke up this morning with the last 2 pipped eggs having hatched (Cuckoo Pekin and Red Saddled Yokohama), 2 eggs didn't hatch, Lemon Millifluer Sablepoot and 1 of the Welsummer Bantam eggs), still 16 out of 18 isn't bad. All the chicks are now out in the brooder, incubator cleaned out, disinfected and set again with the following eggs:

6 Gold Dutch Bantams
1 Lemon Millifluer Sablepoot
5 Buff Pekin
1 Lavender Pekin
4 Cuckoo Pekin
1 Crele Pekin
1 White Pekin
2 Black Pekin
2 Old English Game Bantams

And I have left room for tomorrow's eggs plus, I am expecting 10 Serama and 2 Sebright eggs in the mail tomorrow (egg swap!)

Sadly, we lost one of our Gold Partridge Pekin girls yesterday, no idea what was wrong with her, so seemed fine the day before, but seeing as she was the only one with the cockerel (the other girl is with the Crele boy), I've put the Partrdige Cockerel into my "Spare Cockerel House" with the Silkie, Silver Sebright  and Silver Birchin Pekin. Give the house a very good scrub out and disinfected it.  I will brush loads of diatom into all the nooks and cranny's tomorrow, so that the house may be ready to use again at the weekend,

Candled the eggs in Incubator 1 again this evening and all are developing well except 1 Crele Pekin and 1 Sablepoot.

More chickies :)

 Woke up this morning to another 4 chicks, so 5 more to go now. 1 Light Sussex Bantam (I think) pipping, Yokohama - Internally pipped. Sablepoot and Cuckoo Pekin, should can see them pressing on the membrane, but not through to the airsack yet and finally 1 Welsummer Bantam egg - Not sure, the other 5 have hatched, so sound from this one, but the egg is very speckled, so hard to candle clearly.

The first picture is our Lebgar chick, which I think is a girl.

Managed to get quite a few cleaned out today and moved the Polands to the pen the little Light Sussex bantams were in, as his crow is rather shrill and they're we're closest to our bedroom window!. The picture below is the little Light Sussex Bantams that I mentioned yesterday, they're around a quarter of the size of our other Light Sussex Bantams (probably about half the size of a pekin). No idea why this is?, maybe just the growing on over winter and they'll shoot up in the spring?. They must be around 20 weeks old now. The one at the front of the pic is the one that laid the egg yesterday.

,

9 out, 9 to go

 The incubator 2 hatch is going well, so far we have 9 hatched and 9 to go (bear in mind, eggs were put in for 2 days after I first set it!. From the top of my head, I think it's 2 cuckoo Pekins, 2 Buff Pekins, 2 Welsummer Bantams, 1 Light Sussex Bantam, 1 Legbar and 1 White Pekin. Still got 4 Welsummer Bantams, 1 Cuckoo Pekin, 2 Sablepoots, 1 Yokohama and (I think) a Light Sussex Bantam.

Ordered some Gold Dutch Hatching eggs yesterday, so they'll be going in the incubator once this hatch is done. We have a few of our pekin and sablepoot eggs to go in too.  Also should have some Serama eggs to go in there too

Had a bit of a surprise this evening when I went to put the birds to bed, one of my young Light Sussex Bantams (who are tiny)  laid an egg!,,,even more surprised, as I'm sure it was the one I was thinking was starting to look a bit like a cockerel (will post pics tomorrow). Weather has been total crap again today, snow for most of the day...Luckily, it didn't lay, but needless to say that I've been having a lazy day again today. No doubt I'll end up paying for it by working my arse off to catch up once the weather gets better.

Eggs are pipping in incubator 2 :)

The eggs have started to pip in incubator 2, when I last checked there was a cuckoo Pekin, white Pekin and the Legbar pipped, not checked for a few hours, so very possibly more pipped now.

Sold my Indian Game today, always the way that...I have had them advertised for the last couple of months with no interest, but as soon as I enter them into the auction, they sell!..Still, happy they've gone to a new home and frees up one of my pens.

Rain has been utterly horrible today, most of the garden is flooded, thinking about getting an inflatable dinghy so I can row down the garden to  let the chickens out in the morning!

The forecast is dry for the next couple of days, so should drain most of the water away, sadly it won't dry out the mud though :(