Beautiful Hens

I'm getting a regular 3 eggs per day from my bantams. Lyra is broody so this is from Vera, Lulu and Velvet. Velvet (black bantam silkie) and Vera (gold laced bantam wyandotte) have always been the most stand-offish of the hens. I have only once managed to have Velvet eating out of my hand - she generally waits for the slippage from the other greedy girls to fall to the floor and hoovers that up. This means that it is particularly difficult to get a good photo of Velvet and Vera. However on a lovely sunny Sunday in the garden, I spotted the sun slanting through the late afternoon sky into their pen so I went in with then and waited patiently for them to look photogenic. I think I succeeded. Here are the results:

Maud, imperious as ever

A rare photo of Velvet

Vera, my last bantam wyandotte - gold-laced and handsome

Lulu looking fluffy

Booted Sabelpoots

It was my birthday on Wednesday, and my daughter came round last night for a girlie barbecue and then today we went to The Barns near Moggerhanger to buy some new hens. Last year I lost Nutmeg, Agatha and Amber, then with Buffy dying this year I was down to 5 hens.

We spent a lovely time wandering around the breeding pens looking at all the chickens. Then we walked around the sale pens shortlisting our favourites. It was hard. Eventually I settled apron the bantam sablepoots. There was a big cage of new arrivals aged 12 weeks near the front. But which ones. We had seen a breeding trio of lemon sablepoots which were gorgeous, but the variety in the mixed cage was very tempting. There were a couple of cages of 6 week old bantam lemon sablepoot chicks which we really fell for. In the end I chose two lemon and one bantam porcelain sablepoot. Porsche is the porcelains and Mapp and Lucia are the baby lemon sablepoots.

'

It will be interesting to see how they cope with their ever growing feet feathers.

Three booted sabelpoots

So, my birthday treat to me. Three lovely new Sabelpoots. Mapp and Lucia, the lemon sabelpoots, and Porsche a lovely porcelain sabelpoot. So young! The two lemons are only just out of the barn, at about 6 weeks. Porsche is 8 weeks.