Chicken Sexing

Okay this time i'm not just rambling, i need some advice please. Do any of you chicken people know how the hell I can sex my chickens. I keep thinking I know, then one of them looks totally different overnight! I'm estimating that they are around 16 - 17 weeks old. They are Heinz 57 variety so no feather sexing here. I am not about to squeeze their bums either, so please don't suggest vent sexing thank you!

The two that I thought were boys are the two black ones. They are slightly bigger than the others but I thought this was due to the other two being ill early on. They both also don't have such developed wattles as the others, although their combs are the same. One though, has changed his tail shape. It has become longer and less feathered. This chap is also the more dominant one of the group. I am guessing he's a cock.

This one, however looks exactly the same, wattles, comb and all, but has a much stumpier tail, like the others.

So am I just being hopeful, stupid, or is it just too early? I need to find new homes for the boys because J won't let me cook them. We may have found someone who will rehome one, but I need to know if I am giving away the right bird! I don't want to give up my layers! So any ideas gratefully received!

Eggs

C didn't lay yesterday and the day before we had a very odd egg. The fat end was normal, but the pointy end was a very obscure shape and paper thin. I'm guessing it was just a blip as we have two beautiful eggs today. I have given them cat food, someone said it was good protein to help them regrow their feathers and it should help with the eggs too. Trouble is because they are battery hens they have never seen anything but mash their whole lives, they have no idea what to do with anything else!

I saw a blog post the other day where someone was claiming that they would only ever eat battery eggs. Why? Because of a particular egg, which had a feather stuck to it! OMG a feather, how disgusting! Grow up for God's sake, no one says you have to eat the feather. Would people really rather eat eggs from hens who suffer horrendously than a beautiful egg (with a feather on it) from happy chickens that free range.

Battery hens

While we are waiting for the youngsters to come into lay and knowing that we have only two girls, i decided to rescue a couple of battery hens. It's amazing, my local branch of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) rescued over a thousand birds recently and all found new homes, and i only had two.

Me and the girls picked them up one Saturday. I have to admit they were tatty but not as bad as I had expected. Their combs were floppy and pale, and they had an awful lot of feathers missing. We named them Bella and Cinnamon and settled them into the shed. They seemed very happy and one of them even layed us an egg within an hour of getting them home.

We had to adapt a chicken run kindly given to us by the neighbours to house them in until we introduce them to the rest of the crew. The youngsters are a bit smaller so we didn't want any problems. The run was a long corridor with corrugated plastic roof and a door at one end. I put cat boxes full of hay in there so they could have somewhere nice to go to bed and to lay.

Unfortunately Cinnamon decided after the first day that Bella needed to be picked on, and begin to relentlessly attack her. Pecking her and going for her with her claws everytime she tried to eat or drink. So, we had to adapt the run again. This time putting a wire partition in the middle and a new door at one end. This meant that they each had their own half of the run but could still see eachother through the mesh.

When the cats are in bed the hens come out free in the garden for a bit, which they LOVE. You can imagine they have only ever seen the inside of a battery cage. They strut about, scratching and making adorable happy chicken noises. There run is next to the youngters so they can start to get used to them now. When they are out they seem to get on okay, so hopefully they will all be together soon.

They are laying well and my eldest daughter makes cakes with the eggs before they have even had chance to cool! Soon we will be over flowing with eggs but i'm sure my sister and my parents will gratefully receive them!