Hi from Oxfordshire

rebrascora said:

Hi and welcome from the North of England.

Really sad about your broody. Will keep fingers crossed for her eggs to hatch. I have lost a few hens since I started in January and I did a post mortem on the ones which died unexpectedly and found they had impacted gizzards. (I feed my horses grass cuttings from the lawn and the hens had got into the stable and got some of it). I was lucky that the cause was really obvious and I found it helpful to know what the they had died from and therefore try to prevent it happening again, but I also learned a lot in the process. The others got taken by dogs/foxes.

I'm also breeding exchequer leghorns and cream legbars but I have a very mixed flock. How old are your chicks? My second broody just hatched 8 eggs last weekend and my first broody is on her second batch. I'm getting rapidly overrun with chickens!

I know it is possible to sex the legbars on day 1 and it looks like I have one male, but when does the sex of the leghorns become apparent? My first brood were mongrels but the combs were a giveaway at about 5 weeks. With leghorn hens also having such huge combs I'm wondering if it will be so obvious.

There are a few threads on here specifically for UK members if you are interested in perhaps making local contacts and sharing more regional experience.

Anyway, good to have you on board and hope your remaining hens thrive

Best wishes

Barbara

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Hi, thanks for the welcome, it does sound like you have a lot of chickens! Sorry to hear about your losses too, I guess it's all part of the learning process. Our chicks are 4 1/2 weeks old. one of the leghorns already has a red tinged comb and is getting wattles, he's chest bumping his siblings too, no doubt about him being a roo. The other is looking more pullet like combwise, so fingers crossed; this one does have a larger comb than the legbars, but smaller than her brothers, and not showing any red yet.

Btw, 2 of our eggs hatched day 23, we now have 2 fuzzy little Rhode Island bantam chicks; I feel a little sad that they are orphans, they are snuggling up to their hot water bottle 'mummy' under their heatlamp. The other 2 didn't make it (one did not develop at all, and the other looked like it died about a week ago).

I'll look out for the UK threads, thanks

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. We have lots of members from the UK, and if you want to, you can get in touch with them at https://www.backyardchickens.com/newsearch?search=uk+members. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.

Hi again 7OxfordHens

Thanks for that info re sexing the leghorns. Yours will be starting to get over the ugly dinosaur phase and be starting to look pretty at 4 1/2 weeks and mine are still fluffy and cute but will be at the ugly stage by next week. They grow up so quickly!
It's a shame you don't live closer, it would have been good to swap cockerels to improve genetic diversity

Pleased to hear that 2 of your chicks made it. I would have thought that is a good result in the circumstances but yes, very sad that they are orphans..... but then the majority of chicks will be brought up in orphan like circumstances and at least there are 2 of them to keep each other company.

My broody, Frances, took her chicks out of the brooder yesterday for the first time to explore the hen house and I was delighted to see she got them all up the ramp and back in again last night. I had visions of having to chase around trying to catch them all. This morning she brought them straight out as soon as I opened up and Henrietta my RIR came back into the hen house to play auntie....little does she know she is mummy to 2 of them! It was interesting to see them interacting as Henrietta is very much at the top of the pecking order whereas Frances is right at the bottom. I was concerned that she might try to steal the chicks but they seemed to reach an amicable agreement, where Henrietta only watched and offered food but didn't muscle in and step over the line. That is probably the best thing about having a broody.... flock integration.

Anyway, apologies for hijacking your intro thread.... I get carried away when I start thinking about chucks

Best wishes

Barbara