Lots of Chicks

We now have 28 chicks - 7 Hybrids, 3 Welsummers, 6 Araucanas, 3 Vorwerk, 4 of Liz's Black Orpingtons and Keith came home on Saturday with 5 Silver Laced Wyandotte week old chicks to replace the eggs that had all failed, he knew how much I wanted some.
Now we have to see how many are hens.

 Left is an Orpington, middle is a Vorwerk, most of the others are Araucanas. When the Vorwerk grows up it will have a black head and buff body, the wing feathers are just starting to show through buff now.

There's one of the hybrids on the left and a Welsummer on the right. They managed to tear a sliver of newspaper off today, and there was great excitement running round the brooder shouting 'Mine, mine', 'Chase me, Chase me, I've got it!'. As the paper gradually got torn to bits, they all lost interest.

We let the original three chicks out into the big wide world on Saturday. Not too much grief, lost a few wing feathers to Dotty but generally just snapped at. They seem very happy exploring and the Eglu has now been moved nearer the main coop and run up onto the platform. By next weekend I hope they will be able (and accepted) to move into the coop proper.

 Here they are with Auntie Gladys, who hasn't been well lately and had a nice warm bath last night.

And here they are raiding the duck food!