Yesterdays trip to pick up the new laying birds and my Lavender Pekins was a lovely morning out. The nice man we brought them off gave us a guided tour of his bird empire, lots of Bantams, parrots and parrakeets of every description and some gorgeous Beagles that he has just started to breed from. I have a real soft spot for Beagles, a lovely intelligent dog with such expressionful eyes. He also had a couple of American Black Swans with their day old cygnets, gorgeous.
Anyway we got our birds home and quickly got them instated in their new homes, with much interest being shown by our own birds, dogs and cats. Archie sat on the top of the Eglu and watched with amazement, Rosy managed to get a mouthful of tail feathers, but released her prey on command.....phew!!
The Layers are a hybrid, mostly Rhode Island Red but with a bit of something else thrown in for even better laying potential. They look similar to the Welsummers but have a much more reddish tinge to their glorious plummage. We kept them in the henhouse with mesh over the door for yesterday afternoon and this morning, but now they are out and about establishing a pecking order with the older girls. Surprisingly the Speckledys are showing their authority the most with the Welsummers and the White Stars just taking it all in their stride. It will be interesting to see who sleeps where tonight.
The Lavender Pekin Bantams are just gorgeous bundles of fluff. At the moment they are smaller than a pigeon but when fully grown they should be about twice the size. They are so soft to the touch and chirp constantly. They most likely will not be free-ranging as they are so small, and with the cats, dogs Red Kites and Buzzards around the farm I think they will be to easy to carry off. This is the start of my little Lavender breeding empire and their offspring will be for sale, hopefully in the near future. The final thread that ties the farming side of things with my lavender business.
I hope everyone has a lovely Bank Holiday weekend, I was hoping to start our big de-cluttering offensive this weekend at the Car Boot Sales, but I may be thwarted by the weather!!
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Fingers crossed the sun struggles through.
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Sue xx
oh my, you will love the pekins! They are the best chickens in my opinion - ours are so tame they sit on my lap! :-) You also don't need an incubator with them - they make the best mums.
ReplyDeleteOh just lovely photos. Gee those little pekins are just adorable♥ I would love to be able to buy FRESH free range eggs. I often wonder how old the eggs are that I buy:(
ReplyDeleteThe Pekins are so fluffy, and they really are lavender coloured!
ReplyDeleteYou've given me henvy. You see hen envy = henvy. Knew I'd get there in the end!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you are putting your final plans into motion with these pretty fluffballs !
ReplyDeleteI keep looking at the house thinking I must start a spring clean & declutter- lots of visitors popping in over the weekend of May 22nd for Mum's 80th birthday. If Hubby put as much effort into the house as he did that boat I'd have a show house .... but no boat !
Enjoy your new girls - my experience of Rhode Island Reds is that they are very bossy & nosey - Ruby certianly is...I was in stitches watching Dillon see her off from his breakfast !
Sue they are gorgeous -such a beautiful colour :) We used to keep chickens, geese and bantams when I was little, and the bantams were my favourite -we used to hatch the eggs out under my Dads pigeons (we kept them too!) and then teach the little chicks to pick up their food by tapping our fingers in the food for them to copy...- I have 'henvy' too!!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your weekend Sue..