New girls

Since Pepper and Dotty have gone the run seems so big and empty. It is lovely to see the little girls looking so happy though. It is all quiet now apart from the egg shout and some happy chatter and all the girls are happily scratching away, dust bathing or perching together.

I rang the lady that I will be getting two bantam brown leghorns from and let her know that I was now ready at any time. She said they are still with their mum and it will probably be about a month before they are fully feathered and ready to leave mum. We agreed that I would ring once a week to see how they are coming along.

My husband said that after all the expense and effort on building such a big run he thought I should also add a few more. He pointed out that we now have more than enough space for eight little girls.

My friend Jackie called yesterday to see how I was feeling after re-homing Pepper and Dotty and she said that she thought I needed some chicken therapy and that a month was still a long time to wait.

I thought that she was right and if I could get another couple of bantys now there would be plenty of time to get them integrated before I collect my new babies. My problem is that there are not many farms near us that breed bantams.

The farm that I got the wyndottes from used bantam game fowl as their broodys. They are lovely birds with glossy black feathers that shimmer with green hues. I thought it a bit of a long shot but rang the farmer today to see if he sells them.

To my surprise he said I could have two straight away. He has a clutch of chicks for himself and would be happy to sell some of last years hens. He said I could come and collect them today and he would show me his game fowl chicks while I am there.

I felt really excited and we said we would be along in a few hours time. I got the dog crate ready once again and closed off the smallest part of the chicken enclosure. As luck would have it I had cleaned out all three coops yesterday, dug the whole run over and swept every thing down. Everything was ready for the arrival of new girls.

We got to the farm by late afternoon. We had a look at the game fowl bantams first. There were two different colours which was even better for me as I could have one of each and could tell them apart. There were some black with glossy green and a bit of purple in their feathers and the other were a bit like a partridge colour with some brown feathers.

We went to look at the chicks before choosing our girls to take home. The first ones we looked at were the two types of game chicks with a silver laced wyndotte mum.

Game chicks with wyndotte mum

They were adorable. We saw the silver laced and gold laced chicks at various stages from little chicks to big chicks to teenagers. They were all adorable.

We went back to the barn where the game birds were and I chose one of each colour. The farmer caught them with a net and put them in our dog crate. I asked how much and he said thirty pounds for the two which I thought very reasonable.

On the way home I chose names going with my descriptive theme and decided to call them Emerald and Toffee.

Emerald and Toffee

Emerald is on the left and it doesn’t show much here but in the sunlight she shimmers with green. Toffee is on the right and has brown partridge type feathers on her back and breast. Emerald has a much smaller comb and is obviously younger than Toffee.

I put the dog crate against the little coop like I have done before with new girls so that they will know on their first night where to go to bed. Tomorrow they will have all of this area and once they know where to go at bedtime I will open the hatch and let them have half the run. I plan to keep them separate for a week as that worked really well last time and then mix them under supervision and take it from there.

So far the other girls have not taken any notice of them but it’s early days yet. Once I had the dog crate in position the two new girls went into the little coop. I hope this means they will know where to go at bedtime.

Emerald ventured out for some food

Toffee got this far

Emerald was soon scratching around in her small space, eating pellets and standing in the water. Toffee seems more upset by the move and is reluctant to come out of the coop. I am sure by tomorrow when they have more space they will be more settled.

I will shut them in this little coop tonight and then remove the dog crate. I will then get up early tomorrow morning and let them out into this space. I hope they settle in as quickly and easily as the wyndottes did. Our new adventure begins.