The Chicken or The Egg

Which came first?! Who the hell knows is my answer, but with recent changes in my chicken coop, the egg will most definitely lead to the chick! After several months of post illness recovery, and one very broody Charlotte refusing to sit on the eggs I actually wanted her to incubate, my finest Silkie has settled upon a clutch of six. In approximately 21 days (make that 19 on the day of posting) I hope to hear the tiny sounds of pipping as wet, yellow new lives break their way out of their three week cocoons and enter into the new world.

Georgia tightly settles upon her clutch

Georgia had one clutch last year, producing four Light Sussex chicks, one of which I ate, two of which sadly died on the flock infection earlier this year, and one which still remains the most ferocious and boisterous hen I’ve ever known. Poor Georgia’s been through the mill. She had chronic sickness when the flock were infected by a mould composition. She then got an eye infection which has left her partially blind and her early season moult left her looking more like a rat than a chicken. However, she is never happier than when incubating, and see her going down I quickly dashed to eBay, bought six Rhode Island Red hatching eggs, and shoved them under her as quickly as possible.

She’s now happily ensconced in her cardboard box, so much so that I’m having to lift her off the nest everyday so she actually has a drink and something to eat. She’s a dedicated mother if anything is to be learnt from her previous clutch, clamping onto her precious cargo of eggs and rarely letting them see the light of day. And being later in the season than normal, she’s unlikely to leave the nest because of overheating. So the calendar is marked, Septemeber 8th, and patter of tiny feet and the sounds of tiny chirping may soon fill my ears with sweet delight.