We had chickens when we were children - 10 of them with such lovely names as 'Bruce Wayne' (My sisters and I were rather obsessed with Batman at the time) and 'Broody' (That one is self explanatory). They were rescue chickens, bantams, and all different shapes and colours. We used to feed them every day and collect their eggs - despite them being rescue chickens, they were actually quite trusting of us and we used to be able to pick them up, pop (some) of them on our laps, it was rather fun.
So, whilst I've had a yearning desire to hatch chickens since I was young, this dream has had to be put on the 'to do' list - at least, it was until last week, when a work colleague of mine mentioned not only did he have a farm, he also wanted more chickens.........
Why hatch chickens, just to give them to someone else? Well, firstly, it's a learning curve - If you had asked me a week ago what 'Candling' was, I would have had no idea. I think I'll learn a lot from hatching eggs - from all parts of the process, from picking the right type of incubator to picking the right type of eggs and caring for the chicks correctly when they hatch. Secondly, I love nature, animals, birds - I'm one of those 'sad' people who always watching BBC Springwatch / Autumnwatch when it's on and one of those even sadder people who cry if any of the animals die.Thirdly, I'm a 29 year old woman with no children (one very spoilt cat) and if I can cope with looking after eggs for 21 days and chicks for a week, before giving them to my friend, perhaps in a couple of years I'll be ready to have kids, who knows?
Now that I've found a place for the chicks to go - a nice place where they will be able to live out their lives being free range chickens (which is the most important thing in my opinion - that the chickens have a happy life) I'm off to work out the best type of incubator to buy....
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