Fifteen hungry chicks are going through the chick crumb at high speed. I’ve started letting them out and about during the day which they are loving, and the big chickens are getting used to the idea of the new flock members. Bertie works hard to keep the chicks safe alongside Doris Day, he chases off any curious adults as you’ll see in the latest video. No real aggression just the usual chicken ruffled petticoats.

Cagney and Lacey aka “the garage mob” don’t have the etiquette skills to rough it in with the rest and Doris knows that they are impostors and has applied the back of the neck hard peck so I’ve been letting them have a segregated palace in the wooden coop run where they can all see each other but not get into trouble. At night they go back to the garage and the warm light in the brooder. They seem very happy and let me pick them up with less fuss than before.

I think that the Marilyn’s are in fact all boys as they are leggy and have redder combs and wattles already. I think that one of the White Company (the 3 grey ones) is a boy but hopefully 2 are girls. I think the buff one with the cream tipped feathers is a boy but I think that the pretty black tailed one is a girl. Mabel the second or the black one I’m unconvinced either way the comb is reddish but I think Mabel’s was also at that stage - hoping for a girl. I think Cagney and Lacey are girls which is appropriate really or they’d have to use the other bathroom!

More news when the gender is more obvious.