Yes, I did say that from now on we raise our own chickens and with ten already, we had enough. So not sure how it came about that we went chicken shopping.
It started with a conversation agreeing that if, in the future, we were to get more hens, we might consider some hybrids. There are a lot of arguments for sticking to the traditional breeds, like the fact they go broody, their eggs are more likely to be fertilized (so long as you have a cockerel!) and it keeps the old breeds going etc. But hybrids are kind of like the new breeds.. bred to produce more eggs etc.
We discussed ‘rescuings’ some battery hens. Somehow this whole idea does not sit entirely comfy with me.. you are not rescuing them.. their life at the battery farm is over. you are giving them more life. Which might be commendable, I dunno.. hmm. makes more sense to me to rescue them at the other end.. before they enter the battery farm.
We certainly agreed that if… we were ever going to go chicken shopping again, the trick was not to decide what we want then go to silly lengths to get it.. but better to see what was available, take some time to consider if these were the right birds for us, then, and only then go and look at them. All hypothetical of course, as we had decided not to buy any more. We have ten hens already. But, one is broody sitting on a clutch of eggs, and two are proving useless (or potential casserole as we like to refer to them) which leaves only one old enough to lay, and the rest growers. We don’t have enough eggs coming in. Well we do, particularly with the occasional gift of duck eggs from my parents.. but we don’t have the glut I wanted.
Of course we just have to be patient, perhaps the copper marans will come into lay, perhaps the light sussex will become POL enough to actually give us eggs, perhaps the buff leghorn will stop being broody soon, perhaps the chicks we raised will all turn out to be females and start to lay, perhaps we were not sold welsummer (not very), cockerels.. perhaps…
So, I’m not sure how it happened that we went to West Devon and came away with three hybrids.
A lowen brown, a Columbian black tail and a blue maran. So that’s a red hen with a white tail, a red hen with a black tail, and a lovely blue grey hen with a slight hint of brown by the neck. Some pecking and sorting things out… hopefully they will settle in quickly – all the others did. No more chicken shopping for a while now…
