12 eggs, ready to go in the Incubator this evening!
The chap on a neighbouring allotment, the one who adopted two of our geese, has been hankering on having hens for some time now. At the end of last year, we said we'd happily incubate eggs for him, if he decided what breed he wanted and provided he was prepared to deal with the cockerels (I believe it's important that if one opts to get fertile eggs, one is prepared to deal with the consequences). He chose Light Sussex, which is good because any surplus boys can be grown on for the table and so will get 18 weeks of a happy free range life. R has been (im)patiently waiting for fertile eggs to become available since then.
I bought some yesterday via Ebay, and we collected them this morning. Before I bought the eggs, I checked on the AA website to see how far away from us this particuar village was. I entered villagename, Hampshire and the AA map showed the village as being near Basingstoke, just off the M3. A bit of a journey, but the M3 is fairly easy to get to, and a good run once you're on it.
When I bought the eggs and got the sellers postcode, I popped it into the AA website to find that it was actually a different village - same name - much further South. Quite close to Portsmouth, in fact. Oh well, it was too late by then, and once you're in the car an extra twenty or thirty (or forty as it turned out) miles doesn't matter too much....
Weather this morning was vile. TomTom selected a cross country route for us, and I'm really pleased it did. We went through some gorgeous countryside, achingly beautifyl villages, past lots of watercress places.....
And the lady at the other end was lovely. Lots of chooks, all sorts, and more besides.
Anyway. We're home now, and the eggs are in the study settling down. The Incy has been running since yesterday, and we're going to set the eggs tonight.
I'm really happy to do this because we get the fun of raising itty bitty little chicks, and I know they will have a wonderful life with R.
The chap on a neighbouring allotment, the one who adopted two of our geese, has been hankering on having hens for some time now. At the end of last year, we said we'd happily incubate eggs for him, if he decided what breed he wanted and provided he was prepared to deal with the cockerels (I believe it's important that if one opts to get fertile eggs, one is prepared to deal with the consequences). He chose Light Sussex, which is good because any surplus boys can be grown on for the table and so will get 18 weeks of a happy free range life. R has been (im)patiently waiting for fertile eggs to become available since then.
I bought some yesterday via Ebay, and we collected them this morning. Before I bought the eggs, I checked on the AA website to see how far away from us this particuar village was. I entered villagename, Hampshire and the AA map showed the village as being near Basingstoke, just off the M3. A bit of a journey, but the M3 is fairly easy to get to, and a good run once you're on it.
When I bought the eggs and got the sellers postcode, I popped it into the AA website to find that it was actually a different village - same name - much further South. Quite close to Portsmouth, in fact. Oh well, it was too late by then, and once you're in the car an extra twenty or thirty (or forty as it turned out) miles doesn't matter too much....
Weather this morning was vile. TomTom selected a cross country route for us, and I'm really pleased it did. We went through some gorgeous countryside, achingly beautifyl villages, past lots of watercress places.....
And the lady at the other end was lovely. Lots of chooks, all sorts, and more besides.
Anyway. We're home now, and the eggs are in the study settling down. The Incy has been running since yesterday, and we're going to set the eggs tonight.
I'm really happy to do this because we get the fun of raising itty bitty little chicks, and I know they will have a wonderful life with R.
