Rosher.Net

One of our Welsummers went broody a while ago. For a time we just kept moving her out of the coop into the run, hoping she’d forget the idea, but she insisted on returning and laying, superbly hot and shaped like a deflated football shaped non-flying saucer. In the end one of my parish council colleagues Toby, who is helping with the burial ground, gave me three fertilised – or possibly fertilised – eggs at the start of July, and we pushed them underneath…

This morning, when I went for the eggs, I found a surprise!

The ‘mum’ appears happy with her new responsibility, shielding it from the other girls – and from me! The chick is eating mash and crushed weetabix, and taking from the water drinker. Time will tell if it survives the heat, the other girls and the predators (no foxes (I think the Berkeley hunt took every one just before the ban) but sparrowhawks, magpies etc). There are two other eggs in the coop, now currently abandoned but presumably soon to be sat on again. I wonder, though, if this chook chick will make it back up the ladder into the coop tonight… guess I have a duty to perform as foster-father…