Operation Chick-Swap

Everyone loves a happy ending and here we have a strong possibility. We seem to have swapped out the ducklings at ten days old, with our new 'Hubbard' variety one-day-old chickens in a move so successful that even Mentor Anne and Simon were amazed, both knowing enough about chickens to know all manner of things which MIGHT have gone wrong, but luckily didn't. The general concensus among friends and contacts on the internet poultry forum is that we have, in Broody Betty, one amazing chicken, a 'keeper' worth her weight in gold and worth hanging on to and keeping happy!

To recap the story, BB had already done one brood of chickens this spring, successfully hatching 8 babies who are now 14 weeks old and strolling round the place collectively known as 'The 8 Ball' because they remind us of a gang of golfers wandering round a golf course discussing who's playing with what brand of ball, who's in the rough, and who can invent the most proposterous score card. She'd then gone broody again and , having no fertile eggs to put under her we had borrowed ten Indian Runner duck eggs from Anne, for BB to sit on. She sat tight on those for the 28 days required, successfully hatching 5 ducklings on Monday 22nd. We rescued the remaining eggs and Anne subsequently hatched 3 more in her incubator.

Feeling for poor old BB and not wanting to steal her new babies without giving her something else to 'mother', we hatched a plan to obtain some day-old chicks of the meat-variety of chicken which is used widely in Ireland where birds are free-range or grown organically, the "Hubbard", but we were unable to get hold of these quickly and it was not till the ducklings would be 10 days old that we'd be able to do the swap.

The chicks were duly fetched from up by the 'Norn Iron' border on Thursday 1st Aug (Anne and Simon had gone up to get chicks for three 'customers' including Broody Betty) and delivered at 5:30 pm. With all sorts of apprehensions, Simon and I crept into BB's house, lifted out the 5 ducklings and put them in sight in a box on the floor, in clear view of BB, who was only a bit concerned, being used to me lifting her ducklings down every morning to let them out free ranging.

Then, instead of letting her down we slid in the 8 confused, LOUDLY cheeping chicks who milled around her feet drowning out any duckling noise. Betty then amazed us all by starting to cluck contentedly and gather the chicks to her, the ducklings apparently forgotten in the racket. He who shouts loudest gets heard, obviously!. We disappeared the ducklings in their box to outside the door and watched while Betty clucked and fussed the new chicks into her 'bedroom' and settled down with them on the hay nest, completely enclosing them under her skirts, looking every inch the contented hen. Not for her to worry why her babies had turned from 5 puddle-ducking, wet-loving ducklings into 8 dry chicks (as well as grown younger). Everything seemed right with the world.

We checked on her hourly that evening and brought them all breakfast in the morning (back to finely mashed hard boiled eggs and chick crumb!) which Betty immediately started to show them how to peck and scratch at.

Obviously we are not out of the woods yet, these babies are still only 3 days old as I write this but it's all looking very promising. As I said, so much could have gone wrong. Betty is not even 'meant' to be a broody, a "clocker" as they say here. Sussex Pontes are a modern egg laying hybrid developed by a huge commercial hatchery, where broodiness would just be a nuisance. They try to breed it out of the birds. Then there is the going broody twice thing. Then there is getting them to accept ten duck eggs which they know they didn't lay. Next up, the low chance of a hen sitting for the full 28 days - chicken eggs only take 21. Next is them keeping up the mothering of ducklings for ten days - ducklings are programmed to do all the wrong things by hen standards - they love to get wet and play in puddles, they do not scratch for food and they do not eat much seed and grain. This 'disobedience' can quickly upset the hen who will abandon the babies and go off in disgust. Finally there is the chance of a successful substitution after ten days of duckling fostering by which time mum and ducks will be well bonded and babies are very active. Broody Betty had to not only accept the change, but also almost a start-again-from-scratch (if you'll forgive the pun) with newly hatched chicks. The ducklings, of course, also have to cope with being wrenched from 'Mum' but in this case they were slotted in with their (12) incubator-finished and reared siblings and the multi-fowl life of a bird on Anne's place and appear to have thrived on it.

So, for now Broody Betty is disguised as 'Old Mother Hubbard' and we will report her continuing adventures on here.

Dirty Stop-Outs

Ever since we lost that first chicken to a fox back last year because we sat chatting into the evening while they free-ranged till 20:30, we have learned a lesson and tried to get everybody locked up safe by a decent hour. We've done well at this and all the birds have co-operated to such a degree that we have friends on some of the poultry forums and Facebook as well as Mentor Anne, sometimes amazed that we have them "all in bed by 6" or what ever. Everybody else seemed to be struggling to round up last stragglers a good hour or more after we were shut down. I have continued this with the geese and goslings who don't take themselves off to bed, but are happy to be rounded up and shepherded to their 'bedroom' by about 18:30 and are waiting by the gate when I go out to collect them. They all waddle straight in the 'back door' and I shut it behind them, then nip round to the front and give them a handful of grain and rolled barley. So far so good.

It's been a bit of a shock, then to take on these new Cuckoo Marans who are not interested in early nights at all. They are dirty stop-outs by comparison. As I type this it is ten past 9 at night and I have only just this minute persuaded their two reluctant rumps into the wooden 'goose' house and bolted the pop-hole. They are safe enough in these bright, sunny evenings, when the sun doesn't set till 10 p.m. but they don't want to be stretching it out any more, or our little red furry cunning friend will be having them for his supper. We have seen enough foxes to know that they are always about and are famous opportunists.

It was quite amusing tonight to watch the rooster, William, trying to round them up. They have settled in well here and I now release them from the orchard once they have both laid eggs, so that they can go free ranging, meet William and mix it with all the existing flock. It is good to see William now parading his 3 white Sussex Pontes and two grey/black Marans around as a group. But William is one for his early lock ups and generally heads for his roost about 7:30 p.m and then crows vigorously calling his ladies home to roost, till they are all accounted for, generally by about 8 p.m. Tonight at around the 7 p.m. mark we were sitting by the pond and could see right across to the trees of the 'Secret Garden'.

We watched William fretting up and down that bit of sheep fence, moving 6 feet towards 'home' and then doing his excited scratch-the-floor 'dance' to try to draw the Marans closer, then moving another 6 feet and so on. The Marans would seem to be drawn, but then would drift back further away, so he had to back-track and collect them again. Poor William was losing his mind, especially as the Sussex girls had got bored by then and made their own way 'home' without him. It seemed to us that he was desperately inviting the Marans 'back to his place'. We let him off the hook eventually, rounded up the Marans to the orchard and then shepherded William 'home'. He'll get another chance tomorrow. He seemed relieved to no longer have that responsibility. We then had the hour and a half of abortive attempts to drive the Marans to their own house before they finally went willingly at 9 p.m.

The Marans, mean time have decided to get a bit creative with their eggs. After a succession of plain mid-brown eggs, we suddenly got this lovely speckled one. Perhaps the late nights are fuel to the creative processes. Talking of 'creative' Liz has been getting on very well with my jumper and is now almost there, working her way around the 'band' which has buttons one side, goes round the back of the neck and then has button holes the other side. (Sorry - probably haven't given you the technical terms - knitting is not actually my strong suit!). This long band has involved 'picking up' around 370 stitches, so Liz has had to invest in a 'circular needle', a continuous flexible loop of needle running from the hard point in her left hand to the one in her right. It's all looking very professional.