Raising chickens
Well the natural order of things seems to be playing out. One of our hens has gone 'clucky' and is sitting on 16 eggs. Perhaps having a rooster has something to do with it?
The dedicated little thing has been out there in the ling grass and blackberry in all sorts of weather (including snow) to the point that we erected an old umbrella over her.
Something happened to scare the bantam off her nest. One of the eggs was broken. The blame has been laid on a hedgehog but we don't know for sure. She hasn't returned for now for over 24 hours. I fear the eggs would be dead by now.
We cracked open one of the eggs to check the contents and it looks a bit rotten so have discarded this batch of eggs.
Good news, one of the other hens has started building up a collection of eggs with the intention of sitting on them. We have helped her along by adding eggs from our fridge selecting an assortment of bantam, arakana and the other general mongeral variety.