A tomato treat for the girls

I think chopped tomato is the girls’ favourite treat.

But what this post is really about is getting new girls. I have been looking in on pipinchick since we lost Salmon. Eight or nine girls is my favourite number and thinking that Sugar is a bit vulnerable I thought it would be good to get a couple of new girls.

Last year pipinchick had bantam copper maran and bantam splash maran on their books which I really fancied but none were available. This year they have disappeared and I e-mailed to see if they would be getting any. It turned out that the hatchery they got them from had retired.

I have researched to see if I can get them or any bantams locally and there isn’t anything that I want. I like my hens without crests, beards or feathered feet, what I call “clean” chickens. There are plenty of the sort of bantams I don’t want locally but none of the clean variety. I also can’t find any other breeder that delivers.

I even thought of relenting and getting seramas again but my husband is adamant that we shouldn’t go down that road again. We have lost far to many of them.

I had been e-mailing back and forth to pipinchick and had said that I would like a bantam buff laced wyndotte but couldn’t come up with another clean bantam. Suzanna suggested a chabo (Japanese bantam) would be perfect for me but I said that I had been put off by losing Snowflake to egg peritonitis on her first spring and that she wasn’t friendly like the rest of the girls and was also very noisy.

Any way after giving it a lot of thought I decided that I had probably been unlucky with Snowflake and that perhaps I should try having another one.

After a phone call to Suzanna I felt better about a chabo. She said it was unusual for them to have egg laying problems and that they were usually friendly birds. I said that whereas the other girls are vocal before egg laying and sometimes give the egg shout after laying that Snowflake always shouted for a while before laying. Suzanna said that probably indicated that Snowflake had a problem from the start. She said she could have been shouting before laying because she was uncomfortable. Snowflake did used to lay quite large eggs for her size.

Anyway I decided to have a bantam buff laced wyndotte and a chabo and although the wyndottes wouldn’t be ready until May I said would like to buy them now as they are selling really quickly. The website shows how many of each bird they have in stock. While we were in the process of doing this Suzanna said they could deliver them to me on Friday 10th May so I will be getting them in less than two weeks.

My husband said I could have them as my birthday present as my birthday is in May.

At the moment five out of seven of my girls are from pipinchick and soon it will be seven out of nine. I am gradually moving over to a pipinchick flock. This will be the third year running that I have had their girls and I have been really impressed with their service.

I am so excited at the prospect of getting my new girls.