CBA

I feel like I'm always thinking/feeling/saying this.... I've been struggling with a severe case of CBA (Can't Be A*sed).

I've been bobbing along, neither drowning or sinking,  but just not quite able to overcome it.   Every time I get a puff of wind in my sails, it feels like something happens to make the wind dissipate.  Not enough to push me into a real funk,  but enough to keep chipping away.

It would be too tedious to write about those happenings,  and some of them are not my news or my story to tell anyway.

I'd been trying to motivate myself to do some sewing, but I'm here writing this blog post instead.

So, while I'm here, let me update you on the Girls and Boys.

At home, we decided to move the Littlees run to be right next to the Big Girls run.  We'd planned to do that at some point, but decided to do it sooner because we wanted to move the Girls away from our next door neighbours fence.    She is quite happy for them to be where they were, but she'll be having visitors soon,  and I know some people are really funny about that sort of thing.   We told her what we were doing,   and she emphasised that the chicks being where they were (and she appreciated why we were doing it).

Blondie

Sylvia

The Girls also have adjoining external runs, and space where they aren't adjoining.    Fleur, our cuckoo Marans,  has been outraged by the move of the Littlees,  and spent a lot of time patrolling the fence line and hurling herself at the Littlees whenever they got within striking distance;   Gloria and Poppy, our Oldies, are in full moult and are keeping their distance. Gloria has really slowed down over the last few months,  and I think she is on her way to losing her place as Top Chook;     Sasha, the Appenzeller,   complains loudly, most of the time;    Fay hops in and out of the Littlees' run,  and makes a point of puffing herself up whenever their paths cross.

Astrid and Summer

The  Littlees will be 15 weeks old this weekend.  The Leghorns are pretty much fullly grown, size wise abd are bigger than Fay (although they don't realise it).   Their wattles are starting to develop into adult wattles,  but they have a long way to go.  Their combs are also tiny for Leghorns.   They continue to be skittish, and I'm losing the enthusiasm of trying to tame them.   They aren't going to be like Lily or Lotti.

Sunshine, one of the Gold Partridge Leghorns, is the shyest of all, and I wonder if she's at the bottom of the pecking order.  Or at the top, and therefore not interested in being friends with me.

Sylvia, the Silver Laced Barnevelder,  is Barney shaped, but still small.  Barneys are slower growing, so it's not surprising.

I'd really really like to have chicks from the Leghorns, crossed with a Cream Legbar boy (to produce blue egg layers).  .  I know it's likely to be 2021 before that happens,  but part of me is hoping that we might be able to do it next year.

I don't have any recent photos of the boys.  They are all still getting on OK, and I'm hoping that they can have a longer lifespan than previous hatches.   It depends on their behaviour as they develop.   Currently BigBoy (Gold partridge leghorn) is top cock,  and treats the boys like his little flock.   The Barney boys are soft docile things (at the moment).    Long John (the silver duckwing leghorn) is developing quickly,  and Bertie Junior (Vorwerk dad, welsh black x Mum) uis looking more and more like a Jack the Lad every day.

I am already wondering if we might be able to keep 2 of the Barnevelder boys.  It seems possible right now,  but these things can change in the blink of an eye.

In Bertie Senior's flock,   most are moulting.   We've got some very senior Girls in the flock,  a lot of them from the same hatch,  so at some point I expect we'll lose a few in one go.   We don't cull the girls just because they stop laying,  we want them to have a long and happy retirement.

Bertie, who has had his card marked for repeated bad behaviour,  has had a short stay of execution.    We've decided to keep him until we take the boys to be culled,  and he'll be culled at the same time... unless he has another incident, in which case he'll go straight away.