Tuesday 31 August 2010

Grandma, Grandma Look In The Coop. The Chicken Just Laid her First Egg.



There was much excitement earlier this afternoon at The Liverpool Micro Chicken Farm as we discovered that our little white Amber Star pullet had laid her first egg - and in the right place too!

We first got her back in the middle of May, when, we were told, she was about 9-10 weeks old. She was a lovely looking little thing, tho' when you picked her up she seemed about the size of a small dove.



Amber Star Pullet
For the first week or so, she, and the other new arrival, were terrorised by our last remaining Warren, but things soon calmed down and the girls have been getting along OK, but not without the occasional squabble.

The Warren stopped laying almost immediately the others arrived, probably induced by the stress, while the Speckeldy one, which looks like a Cuckoo Maran, promptly began laying lovely chocolate-coloured eggs that were rather small considering her size.

The three hens struggled through the heatwave in June, but at the start of July Speckeldy went broody, which we thought rather strange due to her young age. She was about 30 weeks old, and refused to move off the nesting box except under the most extreme provocation.

The internet proved invaluable as we tried all manner of things to bring her out of it and return things to normality, the most bizarre of which was giving her a bag of frozen peas to sit on. She turned her beak up at these, and just moved elsewhere in the coop.

Chicken and Frozen Peas
As neither of the other chickens were laying, we decided to lock her out of the coop during the day time. She was out of sorts for a couple of days, but it seemed to do the trick and things have been fine for the last couple of weeks.

As the weather cooled down and all the three hens were looking a lot happier, the Amber Star had a growing spurt, developed a full comb and wattles, and we kept our fingers crossed that she was approaching Point of Lay.

As can be seen from the video above, she has now moved from being a juvenile to an adult and we wish her a long, happy and productive laying career as part of The Liverpool Micro Chicken Farm Ltd.

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