Backyard Poultry Forum

The Dutch Bantams are very beautiful.
It will be great to watch the Redcaps as they mature too.
Congratulations Trillion.

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Struggling with Lav**

So we have had a lot of rain in the last 24 hours and dad was worried about the Dutch Bantams getting cold last night- when he checked them this morning he found all three in the nest box with the rooster sitting in the middle and a hen on either side and the rooster had his wings stretched over the two hens to keep them warm. Incredibly sweet!

The redcaps continue to impress with their toughness- they spent all day out in the rain scratching around and eating - they can move in and out of shelter but chose to ignore the rain and continue exploring!

Well I'm sorry not to have updated for so long.
There hadn't really been much progress just looking after all of the respective flocks and gradually planning anmore permanent chicken pen arrangement. So I have put in place 4 concrete slabs with 4 kids cubby houses on top which are raised so chickens can get underneath. I have then enclosed these with dog run metal fencing, snake wire dhalf way up the sides and dug in and netting on top. The netting has a fine wire built in which is meant to be possum proof so should at least keep hunting birds out and hopefully foxes. These pens are all inside a fenced area with an electric hot wire off a solar battery. The cubby houses have been insulated and lined with concrete sheeting and plywood and we have then built perches. The pens then have soil and mulch over the top of the slab so the chickens can dig around but foxes can't dig under. At night the chickens are locked onto the house. I hope that makes sense- will upload some pictures shortly. We have finished the first pen and just about finished the second pen. In the first pen I have my bantam langshans. I have lost all of my first flock except Sarah Jane who was very kindly hatched by 70% Cocoa- Sarah Jane is now top hen. This year I have bought a new blue bantam langshan rooster and some more blue hens from Robin Hogan so I now have 9 hens and a rooster- pictures to come shortly.

So last week I have kicked off the next adventure and bought an RCOM 20 Pro incubator and will put my very first eggs in to hatch- tomorrow morning! It's very daunting but I'm hoping with the full automation of the RCOM I can minimise the things that can go wrong!

We will also be putting in some of dads Crevcouer eggs- this breed has just continued to impress - the rooster is so good at looking after his hens and is also really easy to handle - just a throughly lovely tempremented breed that lays really well. We will do a seperate hatch with the Dutch Bantams once I have had a go at the my first hatch with the langshans and crevcouers.

So I have built 4 pens as the plan is I will have one for my bantam langshans, one for the crevcouers one for the extra roosters that we hatch (I can't kill them ) and I am investigating whether I can get some marans from Avgen- the picture of the dark brown eggs looks amazing and the quality and health of their chickens has been great. So that will be the 4 pens where I will breed a small number of each breed to keep my flocks going and sell a small number to people who would like some. Will also use my old portable pen for the smaller Dutch Bantams as it would be a huge pen for them.

So all in all a big update

Will let you know how the first hatch goes!

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow I'm impressed

My gosh, it looks like a 5 star chicken resort. Amazing. Thanks for the great update (but sorry about your other Langies...).

Glad to hear that Sarah Jane is going strong

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Cheerio, Rach
Blue Swedish Ducks

Thanks Sue and Rach

Hi Trillian, I read this post from start to finish last night, took me ages as I followed your chicken adventures.
What happened with your redcaps? I am hoping to get some fertile eggs in a week or so.
I hope you enjoy incubating your own eggs, 21 days go very slowly.

Redcap girls still going well- really sweet hens, unfortunately we lost the rooster to a bad hit of worms and coccidiosis- not sure why he was so badly affected when everyone else has been fine. We are looking into getting another rooster. If you are interested in getting some I think do take into account they really are a free ranging farm bird - they like to be able to move around a lot- ideal in the old English farm yards but needs to be planned for when we have to keep them more constrained because of hunting birds and foxes. Thanks for reading through my adventures!

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8035988&hilit=Redcap

For information this is the link to some more updates on the redcaps, crevcouers and Dutch Bantams