Recent content by AuntieWeasel

  1. AuntieWeasel

    Feather Footed Mystery Chick

    That's exactly what a pekin bantam in mille fleur looks like as a chick, but I suppose you'd know if it was a bantam.
  2. AuntieWeasel

    Has a fox ever got into your chicken food?

    Thanks. Yes. I dug the CCTV out of storage and lookee here: Young badger. Almost certainly a bachelor. Males get kicked out of the sett when they're about a year old and have to forage for themselves. This one was only interested in chicken food (not so much the chickens), so I just don't...
  3. AuntieWeasel

    Escaped broody!

    Thanks for the reply. She has been broody for about a week now. She had started to sit (I didn't know it) for about 12 hours and then was locked up for about four and then went back to the nest. She's in a protected position where most predators can't get to her, but neither can I, so I...
  4. AuntieWeasel

    Has a fox ever got into your chicken food?

    Nope. The range of wildlife here is really limited. I'm from the States, so it's really striking to me how few varmints there are in rural England. It's really just foxes, badgers, some form of weasel, domestic dogs and cats. When you hear a commotion in the hen house, the most dangerous thing...
  5. AuntieWeasel

    Has a fox ever got into your chicken food?

    That tears it! I put a C clamp on the lid last night, and my predator broke into the bin from the other end and left the lid off all night. It rained heavily. Now I have a bin full of 20 kilos of wet cement. The chooks will have to live on corn until the feed store opens tomorrow. I know...
  6. AuntieWeasel

    Escaped broody!

    I had a hen vanish last week at lockdown time and presumed she was taken by the fox. But no, she turned up next day and I penned her up while I went to work. She vanished again as soon as she was free and that's when I suspected what was up. I spotted her again this evening - ravenously hungry...
  7. AuntieWeasel

    Has a fox ever got into your chicken food?

    I keep my chicken food in a big plastic bin with clips on either side next to the chicken house. About a week ago, something got one of the clips off and got inside, tearing a hole in a (brand new) 20 kilo bag of layer's pellets and a (brand new) bag of cracked corn 😡. A little damage, a little...
  8. AuntieWeasel

    Comment by 'AuntieWeasel' in article 'Table Scraps and Leftovers for Chickens'

    Worth noting for UK chicken keepers that the government forbids giving table scraps to chickens. That's right, peeps, it's against the law, unless you have a certified organic vegan kitchen. It's because they blame an outbreak of foot-and-mouth on pigs that were fed undercooked catering waste...
  9. AuntieWeasel

    Polands: help identify sex and color, please

    Hi @Rachnicko. Exactly three boys and three girls. The giveaway was wattles - the boys had them and the girls had none. It was three months before I knew for sure, though. I love my polish, but I'll probably go back to pekins. I'm too soft to cull and it's wearing me out moving cockerels around...
  10. AuntieWeasel

    UK Member Please Say HI

    Ha! I've still got all my cockerels. I'm kind of attached and nobody's fighting yet. I watch them carefully. I have a friend who wanted the big one, but she has a kind of hippie attitude to her chooks. You know, 'foxes are people too'. I like my boy a little too much to be that casual about...
  11. AuntieWeasel

    UK Member Please Say HI

    I'm trying to rehome a couple of bantam Poland cockerels in Kent/Sussex. I've posted (with picture!) in the buy/sell/trade forum here. Sweet boys and I'd love to keep them, but my flock is currently cockerel-heavy. No more hatching eggs for me!
  12. AuntieWeasel

    Kent/Sussex UK: two handsome bantam Poland cockerels

    When I first posted about my six birds, at 8 weeks, experienced Poland owners told me they were all pullets. They had uniformly round, soft crests. Eight weeks later, and the one on the right has grown his cockerel crest and the one on the left is getting there. I'm still holding out an atom of...
  13. AuntieWeasel

    Kent/Sussex UK: two handsome bantam Poland cockerels

    I'm trying to find (free!) homes for these two boys on the South coast. They're 16 weeks old. The one on the right has just started crowing. I know the WC cuckoo on the left looks like a girl, but he's got wattles and sickle feathers and I'm pret-ty sure he's a boy. The WC blue has been twice...
  14. AuntieWeasel

    How do I tame chicks that are raised by a broody??

    The three chicks I hatched under a broody last year have never tamed as much as the chicks I raised from an incubator. I can pick them up when I need to, and I guess that's as much as I expect.
  15. AuntieWeasel

    Oh no, a surprise roo!

    I wouldn't assume harassment unless you see it happening. My mother was an old hippie; she insisted on a rooster and thought that hens wouldn't be happy without a sex life. I don't really buy that (I had an all-hen flock for a long time and they were perfectly content, as far as I could tell)...
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