And this is Queenie, mum to Queenie Baby Pale who, as mentioned yesterday, is also broody. Up until today we have been taking away any eggs she had either laid or stolen as we were not quite sure we wanted any more chicks, especially as September is just round the corner and not necessarily a ‘traditional’ month for chick rearing.
However, since QBP has decided September is a perfect time for raising chicks and so accordingly had snuck off, laid a load of eggs in secret and is now sitting on them... we have decided to bow to the superior behaviour of chickens who ‘know what they are doing’. QBP, we discovered today, is actually sitting on SIXTEEN eggs and so the obvious solution was to give some of those to Queenie and that way we won't have to give her new eggs and so end up with too many birds!
We candled half of the eggs before removing some for Queenie and ALL were fertile. This suggests that all 16 may be fertile!!! Judging by the stage they were at, we could be looking at just two weeks before they hatch (21 days being the incubation period) which means we should get chicks in-between our two sets of ducklings, due 7th and 14th September respectively.
We very much hope it will be a warm September AND October and that it only rains at night!!!