She's a lovely little blue bantam, with deformed feet, though whether from malnourishment, birth defect, or flock bullying is unknown.

A friend had four given to her and a hawk took the other three. This little lady was fretting and not eating, so Janet asked if I would take this one. I put her in isolation since the pullets and Khione are supposedly sleeping in the grown-up coops now... only Nerida hopped the fence into the nursery pen at bed time, and then I had to let Starflower (formerly Pimpernel) go in as well because she was freaking out not being able to get to her sister.

Our plan to give a couple away and put most to meat hasn’t worked, so it’s worked out that we have mostly hens -  four hens (two bantams and both a black copper and a splash Marans) and a blue copper Marans rooster (who is going to be one gorgeous boy and I *wish* I could keep him! 😭) are going to a friend’s daughter. Two hens (bantam and silver-laced Wyandotte) are going to another friend’s father. And the last bantam is staying with us. That means all we have left for meat is the Wyandotte rooster, the poor little man! 🥺

But, Foxglove has her own little set of six eggs going now, so we’ll see what comes of that. Another friend would like to get a couple of hens for his back yard, so if there are two or three little ones from Foxy we’ll pass them along to him. At least we know which hen they’re from in that case - the current bantams were collected from the Lower Bantams as a whole, although the gingery-ness of a couple makes me thing my late lovely Buttercup was probably their Mama. Pity they’re going off to another home... But Poppy is a pretty, charming little thing and I’m sure she’ll fit in once she’s big enough to go in with the others.

Foxglove’s babies should be quite nice looking things - although with the super-mixed heredity you never can tell! At least their parents are attractive, though!!

I realised that, because things have been A Bit Crap, I can't remember how many chooks I have at the moment. The best way to remind myself? Make a list! (In no particular order.)

Khione

Tempest

Starflower

Nerida

Jasmine

Sundrop

Snowdrop

Hellebore

Belladonna

Tansy

Winterberry

Marigold

Primrose

Busy Lizzy

Foxglove

Agapanthus

Delphinium

Violet

Pepperberry

Bluebell

Dahlia

Frodo

I’ve decided on some names for the potential keepers from the current set of eggs.

If I get a Welsummer hen from the one egg that’s developing, I’ll call her Ariande, after Ariadne Oliver from various Agatha Christie stories. I’ve decided that non-bantams from now on will be named after my favourite fictional female sleuths... Until I exhaust my list of 15 names!

The silkie eggs came from a pen of mixed black, blue and splash, and I’m planning to keep up to two hens out of the tree eggs. Part of me says only keep two if they’re different colours, part of me says they’re going to be too darn cute to give away even if there are two hens the same colour... So I’m kinda hoping for two differently coloured hens to take the decision out of my hands!

Black hen names: Opal and Crystal Blue hen names: Beryl and Sapphire Splash hen names: Moonstone and Agate

As you may have guessed, future silkies have a crystal/gemstone name theme! I have 24 to work with. Being a writer, I spend a lot of time brainstorming names, it has become something of a skill/obsession.

Chooks are all doing well. Delphinium is sitting on her eggs beautifully, she is an egg-sitting star. Belladonna and Violet are also broody. Belladonna tents to switch back and forth between two of the nest boxes, but Violet stick like superglue to the one, and if any of the hens lay an egg in there, she adds it to her “clutch” of fake eggs and gets mad at me when I take them away.

We’re halfway through the sitting for Delphi’s eggs, I’m really keen to see how that turns out! Hoping for at least a half-hatch rate, but you never know...

Also today I need to clean out the coop and pen - I usually do it on the first, but that fell on grocery day, and as I said, I’ve been incredibly tired this week, so I just haven’t gotten to it yet. Belladonna and Violet will be annoyed with being turfed out of their nesting boxes when I take them out for cleaning and airing! Poor chookies. 

Buttercup has at least one more day in iso.