More new life but as yet not available for the camera. Somewhere in the warm underbellies of these two, are a few chicks, some of which hatched last night and some possibly today. Numbes are as yet unknown.
We also have two chicks with our third broody who was in the poultry stable but is now in with Berry and her ducklings. She was nesting in a nestbox that unfortunately was still being laid in each day and as such we lost one of her chicks due to it being crushed, presumably by the size nine of another chicken or even Napoleana (turkey) who was also laying in the box. We had in our minds to block the box off yesterday morning, knowing the chicks were due to start hatching today but sadly, this first chick must have hatched the previous night, a good 36/48 hours early!! Such a shame! And we feel terribly guilty. There had been five eggs, four of which were fertile and so there is now just one egg left, we are not sure if it still contans a live chick but we have left the egg with the broody just incase. The colours of the two that have hatched are black for one and stripey brown for the other. These came from a dark egg and a blue egg. Hopefully tomorrow we will see what colours we have under the barn broodies.
Now we just need the weather to remember it is spring, now that we have our first spring births!!!!