Still broody

I haven’t been blogging so much recently for two reasons. For one there hasn’t been much happening in chicken world which is no bad thing and for another I have been learning to sell on e-bay.

We have been in catering for a life time and are now slowing down towards retirement and are just about part time at the moment. This means we have an awful lot of catering equipment that we no longer need.

My eldest son who is my I.T. guy has been teaching me how to sell on e-bay. I have now listed my first twelve items and have already sold four. I am really pleased with how it is going.

Back to chickens. Vanilla went broody but I broke her out of it in just two days. This meant she soon got back to laying again, just one week, after she went broody. She has laid three eggs over the last five days.

With Smoke and Marmite it is a different story. They are determined to stay broody. Marmite has been broody for the last two weeks and Smoke has been broody for the last three weeks.

Still broody

Marmite is a sweet and docile broody while Smoke is an angry broody. You can see the gentle look in Marmite’s eye and the anger in Smoke’s eyes.

Sometimes I put them in the same nest box to free up the other nest boxes when several girls want to lay at once and sometimes, as on this occasion, they choose the same nest box. They will often choose the same nest box if Ebony wants the one next door as she has no time for broodies sharing her nest box.

When I lift them out for a break Marmite will sit where ever I have put her and eventually will move off for a dust bath. Smoke on the other hand will puff herself up and hold her wings at full stretch and if any of the other little girls cross her path she will angrily chase them away.

It takes three weeks for a hen’s eggs to hatch so Smoke should be coming out of this by now but she is showing no signs of giving up. I wonder if she is challenging Ebony with her record of four weeks broody. Sigh!