Cathryn
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Broody henOne of the hens is persistently broody and now that she is coming to live with me I can sort this out or...
I have not yet persuaded Ruby to let us kill and eat the cockerels. Hatching out cute little chicks is not the way to solve this I appreciate but would anyone take any cockerels that we might hatch so we could at least do the cute little chick route (again)? This means I would rear them until they started crowing then pass them on for the pot (and quite probably buy them back off you). Ruby is only ten, she will work it out.
I want (I want I want) some really good blue egg layers, maybe another brown...
Course I also need to check if the old broody coop is still around.
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Chez
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If you hatch a sex-linked cross you could tell what they are at hatching and sell the boys on for growers?
Amn't settled enough to help at the moment. But if/when we do, then yes ...
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Cathryn
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But you know what I am like. It's got to be NOW! 
Get settled quick, none of this bothering with new baby or anything like that.
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Chez
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Well if you set some of Pookie's sex-linked eggs now ... you'll have a hatch in three weeks and we'll be settled by then .
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Cathryn
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oooooh!
Which ones are sex linked? I mean what colours do they lay?
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Chez
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Cream legbars you can sex at hatching. And RIR/LS cross. And various others. Anything with a 'bar' as a suffix I think. Otleylad's cambars, for example.
Basically a purebred dark cockerel x a purebred light hen will do it, hence the RIR/LS ... Pookie is the expert here. She recommended a couple of articles but I forgot to bookmark them.
My barnies x LS seem to produce silver boys and brown girls. And Speckled Sussex boy on LS girl produced buff girls and silver boys.
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Cathryn
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Hmm, I could pick some up tomorrow (cream legbars I want blue egg layers). However the hens are being moved the next day and the move might unsettle the hen. I seriously doubt it she has been pretty consistently broody for months. I have been suggesting that she was stopped ages ago.
Course I am seeing Mochyn again in three weeks is it?
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lottie
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If you just want hatching eggs to put under a broody I can drop some off with the hen---you can sex cuckoo marans easily at hatch as the males tend to be lighter---doesn't help if you want blue eggs though 
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Cathryn
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Ah thanks Lottie, don't tempt me. Cuckoo marans are rather pretty...
I have always fancied multi coloured eggs. However the bantams were Ruby's choice, multi coloured birds. My turn now though and she doesn't mind. Quite fancy green layers as well. I can be patient. I really ought to see how they fare in this garden first. And I am not having loads but not many seem to sell eggs in the village, can only see one sign and she is way up in the mountains. So I am not going to end up with too many eggs.
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Bebo
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Pity you are so far away as we have just set up an extra house and run for meat bird and we probably could have taken spare young cockerels off of you for fattening.
It's very lonely being one of the only downsizers in this area and not being able to get involved in chicken swops and the like you know...........
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Cathryn
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Move woman, you know it makes sense.
Actually I am just about to pm Lottie, cuckoo marans having been on my wish list for awhile, I can manage more than one... and I am seeing pookie tomorrow, probably mention hens, just in passing you know...
The broody is a bantam. And you kind of think, well not to many then but I found her sitting happily and snuggly on 17 eggs a few weeks ago! 
So Sussex is it. (Yeah you are right, I go nowhere near there, I have never been there I don't think.) Suffolk yes but that's not the same is it.
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Bebo
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I only moved here 18 months ago. I already do over two hours each way commute to work each day and it'd take a lot longer from Wales to central London than that!!
Not only that, I'm a lunnener so I talk funny and all you welsh folk would laugh and point..............
Ah well, at least I live in the county that pretty chooks are named after...........
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pookie
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ahhh it all becomes clear, hatching eggs a bit tricky now as chickens not in breeding pens anymore, but if you wanted to take your chances and risk some 'dolly mixtures' you can have some eggs today FOC 
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Chez
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| Bebo wrote: | | It's very lonely being one of the only downsizers in this area and not being able to get involved in chicken swops and the like you know........... |
There's always the post ... or the Downsizer Transport Network!
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