I went (with DH) to see the Allotment chooks yesterday. First time in a few weeks.
Henry and some of his harem are moulting. The blue-ringed girl, who moulted early, now has a full set of feathers and seems to have stopped being a pest.
The Old Girls, who are cockerel-less, seem to be getting on well. A few of them are moulting. Mrs., is still waddling about. She looks a bit stiff, but her comb is a vibrant red and her eyes are bright.
The Dinner Chooks are looking really well. The one who started laying at a ridiculously early age is, we think, one of Spike's offspring. She's black like the Wlesh Blacks, but she has a Leghorn comb and tail. We think her mum is probably one of Henry's wives.
Redhead, the cockerel, looks the spitting image of his grandfather, Roo. We all loved Roo, and we have to remember that Redhead might look like Roo, but he isn't Roo and he doesn't have Roo's amazing temperament.
We still haven't moved the new hen house down to the allotment. It needs vents putting in, and a combination of work, family commitments, and bad weather have meant it's been sitting outside doing nothing for a couple of months now. Any spare time has been taken up with doing the apples, or raking the garden, or other can't-wait activities.
We are probably going to try and combine Henry's flock and the Old Girls flocks for the winter. We wanted to get the new hen house down there and the Old Girls using it before we did so, so we'll need to get on with it soon. We can then separate Henry and a hand picked selection of hens in the spring to breed from, putting them all back together again once we've hatched. At least that's the plan. The current plan.
It would be good to have some baby Normans. Norman (and sisters Siouxie and NotNorman) are getting on a bit now; same age as Mrs, but bearing it much better than her breeding lets her do.
I'm not sure what Norman x Henry would be like. Better than having no Norman at all, I think.
