Updates

After four soft shelled eggs Freckles has stopped laying again which is a good thing. Hopefully a break will sort her out.

At the same time Cinnamon and Dandelion have started laying again so that is good news. Emerald and Speckles have stopped laying and Emerald is already fully into her moult. It seems early but this is normal for her. I am picking up feathers from the chicken shed and the run.

The chicks have grown in confidence and have now explored all around their part of the run. I am leaving the dog crate in for now with the door open all the time as they seem to like to return to it as a place they feel safe. They have all perched on the rungs of  the metal table and blue has perched on the shelter perches.

The chicks on the edge of the shelter

The chicks in the corner of the run

They have moved on to sleeping in the trough so I am thinking that they will soon be  ready to learn to perch at night.

The chicks settled in their trough

This is the new bedtime habit. They look so cute in the trough. The next step is to move them to the perch once they are asleep and try to encourage them to perch at bedtime.

There was one other concern which I had and I had a conversation in the comments with David but didn’t get round to mentioning it here. We noticed how much quicker Blue’s comb was developing compared to the other two and worried that she might be a he. I know that silky girls develop slower and went to the “history of the flock part two”, scrolled down to the bottom and checked the photo of the three amigos when we first got them. Dandelion and Cinnamon had combs whereas Apricot had no comb at all.

We told ourselves the breeder must know what she is talking about. I then had the bright idea of googling how to sex seramas. This really put my mind at rest. It says that by two months it is clear that the girls have a yellow tinge to their comb and the boys have a pink tinge. By three months it showed a boy and the comb was big and red and obviously a cockerel comb. It also said that boys start to crow as early as six weeks and definitely between two and three months.

Our girls are now three months and all three are still cheeping so I am glad to say that it is certain that they are all girls.

Blue is also getting a fluffy bottom at last. They are looking good and doing really well.

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4 Responses to Updates

  1. marion.pharo says:

    Glad to hear they are all girls, they look so cute, all tucked up together to sleep.

  2. Rebecca says:

    Glad to hear that your girls are really girls. It can be so hard when you aren’t sure.

    • Carol says:

      You are so right. We had a moment of wondering what we would do. I said we would keep Blue anyway and my husband said it would annoy the neighbours and I said we would cross our bridges as we got to them. Uncertainty, but hopefully now all okay. Sigh!

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