Snow lays an egg, Gold goes broody and getting new girls soon

Snow laid two eggs on 3rd and 5th January then stopped. About a month ago I thought Snow had laid again as there was an elongated shaped egg in the nest box. It turned out that it wasn’t her egg after all as Ginger’s eggs had gradually got longer and taken on a long narrow shape.

Recently I knew Snow was getting ready to lay again. She was spending time going in and out of the nest box. Yesterday she was in and out for a while and eventually settled. Later she was back out and her egg was in the nest box. I then realised her egg shape was much more pointed than Ginger’s eggs.

As usual it is a case of one in and one out. On the same day as Snow laid her egg, Gold went broody. She had laid eight eggs in fourteen days. Usually the girls start laying in March and yet this year we are on our second broody already. Gold had been in the nest box all day. She finally laid and there was a little pile of grey breast feathers next to her egg. When I lifted her from the nest box she was angry and shouting as loud as I have ever heard a chicken shout.

As all the girls had laid I closed the nest boxes and Gold perched in the chicken shed at bedtime. This morning I have had to leave the nest boxes open because several girls will need to lay. Gold has returned to the nest box. I will just keep lifting her each time I go in the run. Looking back at last year Gold usually took a two week break so hopefully she will come out of it soon. So we are now back to four girls laying.

In other news I am going to have new girls soon. I had been looking in on Pippenchick’s web site regularly to see what breeds they had for sale. In January they had just had a gold sebright become available. I have always wanted a gold sebright and last year as, Chickens To Your Door, had a citrus sebright I got Ginger (along with Silver) as she was the nearest to the colour I most wanted.

Pippenchick had their birds on pre order as they were only three weeks old and would be delivered at three and a half months old. They only had two gold sebrights left so I knew I had to jump in quick and order one. I ordered a gold laced wyndotte to go with her.

I continued to keep looking in and yesterday a gold pencilled wyndotte became available. I rang Pipenchick and asked if I could change from gold laced to gold pencilled wyndotte. I had already paid in January and they are the same price so they changed my order which I was really happy with. They are so helpful.

Three years ago I ordered a gold pencilled wyndotte, Autumn, at the same time as Mango and Cloud. There was a slight mix up and I ended up with a gold partridge wyndotte. I can’t now remember if I put this on my blog but I changed Autumn to partridge on my, History Of The Flock Part Three. I was surprised that she was more gold than yellow but it took me a little while to realise she was a different bird to my order.

I was a bit doomed with Autumn as she didn’t lay and we lost her in her second year with us. Now I have the chance to not only have the gold sebright I have always wanted but also the gold pencilled wyndotte that I originally wanted too. I am really pleased to be getting two of my first choice birds.

Pippenchick have now pencilled in Friday 3rd April for my delivery date so there is not much longer to wait. I have always liked having eight girls and this will take me to ten girls but I feel that now I have found two really good breeders I am not suffering the losses that I used to have and especially now that I no longer have the more delicate seramas. This means I may not need to add to the flock again until I start getting elderly girls.

I am really excited about my new girls coming soon.