We had a peek under Queenie Baby Pale this evening. Her Indian Game eggs are due tomorrow and yet look what we found peeking up at us from under ‘mum’s’ skirts?? These eggs were posted to us and when we last candled them (around the seven days mark, i.e. a third of the way through their incubation period) all TWELVE were fertile although it looked as though one had already died. If the rest carried on growing and we get 11 chicks, that would be remarkable…. We don’t know how many are hatched yet but we can definitely see three faces here… We will have another check in the morning… all very exciting! In other poultry news we still had one duckling at the end of the day.. ‘sorry geese, but it looks like you were the culprits here…’ The geese are not that well settled in the 4-acre field yet but they will eventually realize it is their new home, we hope!!
The number of turkey eggs being laid in the pig arc keeps growing - it looks as though both Napoleona and Katherine are laying one egg a day each, at the last count we had fifteen!!!
And talking of turkeys, we have a NEW Napoleon!! We are sad to say that the old one’s behaviour became unmanageable (as the bruises on Jack’s legs prove). Our new Napoleon is a Bourbon Red, the same breed as Katherine and as smallholding ‘shopping’ is a little like conventional shopping, we came away not just with one male but with another female too!! She is also a Bourbon Red and we have named her Elizabeth in honour of a previous Elizabeth who we sadly lost several years ago. The Bourbon Red colouring appears to be a recessive colouring as when we have bred the old Napoleon (Bronze) from our current three girls: Victoria (Bronze), Katherine (Bourbon) and Napoleona (Pied/Crollwitzer), we NEVER got the pure red colouring. The poults were either bronze or pied. It will be nice therefore to breed pure Bourbon Red for a year or two – they are also less common so hopefully we will be able to sell some and cover a few of our costs!