We’ve kept Pekin bantams for many years and the flock usually stays at roughly six hens which gives us enough eggs for our needs but we’d got down to three recently so we decided it was time for Clarissa to hatch her three babies as mentioned in a previous post. She’s still doing a very good job and the chicks are now ready for weaning but Clarissa is very cautious about letting them go so she’s still in the broody coop with them. We’ve managed to get her out for a short walk with Bunty and Mavis, her fellow hens, but she quickly goes back to stand by her little brood and clucks noisily to them, so we’ve let her back in with them again. We’ll keep giving her the chance to venture out by herself over the next couple of weeks before we finally lock her out altogether. We’re hoping that she won’t be rejected by the other two (since hens can be vicious if one of them has been away from the flock for a while) when she finally re-joins them in the main coop because they go and sit alongside the wire run of the broody coop every afternoon with her as sort of “aunties” to the little ones. The babies will move to a bigger coop once they are 12 weeks old.
UPDATE: Clarissa has finally decided it’s safe for her to return to her friends and leave her babies who are growing more independent by the day. She did return to check on them a lot in the early days but seems to have realised they will be fine on their own now. The next challenge will be to introduce them to the adult group. We think we have two cocks and one hen so we might need to separate them into two groups if they do fight.
Foxglove Farm 