Bad Season for Chickens
Chicken seems to be something of a theme this week… But I was counting hens as they arrived for breakfast this morning and realized that I had almost no one producing chicks this year. The geese, most unusually, laid and brooded once and without effective results. While most of the hens didn’t even seem to go broody. Goldneck the bantam did, and produced in a magnificent effort, a single goldnecked pullet – twice her size thanks to my large rooster – and that was it. This may have been due to the drought, since I have also noticed that the wild birds appear to have nested only once this year as opposed to twice most years and occasionally three times over a very long fine summer. But one pullet is still something of a disappointment.
Bad Season for Chickens
9 April 2013
Chicken seems to be something of a theme this week… But I was counting hens as they arrived for breakfast this morning and realized that I had almost no one producing chicks this year. The geese, most unusually, laid and brooded once and without effective results. While most of the hens didn’t even seem to go broody. Goldneck the bantam did, and produced in a magnificent effort, a single goldnecked pullet – twice her size thanks to my large rooster – and that was it. This may have been due to the drought, since I have also noticed that the wild birds appear to have nested only once this year as opposed to twice most years and occasionally three times over a very long fine summer. But one pullet is still something of a disappointment.