A Little Cottage in the Country

I'm a little bit in love with Silkie chickens! They aren't a breed I'd ever kept until earlier this year when I was a bit spontaneous and bought two bantams at auction. Sadly I lost little Cappuccino but still have her sister Latte. Although Latte is gregarious she has spent a lot of time on her own over the summer so I thought it would be nice to get her a couple of friends. Enter Mocha and Milkshake, both a rather fetching chocolate colour with black pom-poms. Thankfully they seem to get on well with Latte, you can never tell, birds are no different to people in that they don't all gel or get on because they're the same species! After a bit of a quarantine period they've been gradually introduced to the rest of the flock and are fitting in nicely.

A lot of people ask me about my guinea fowl and how hard they are to keep. I started with one female some years ago, who came along with some other birds I took in from a chap with cancer.  I keep guinea fowl in with my Brahmas as lookouts for foxes. Brahmas are very quiet, docile birds and one particularly bad day a fox was able to kill four hens without us hearing anything. The birds are penned if I'm not here, if I am they're allowed free range in the garden. Guineas have a reputation for being eagle eyed, which they are, however they can also be very noisy about something only known to them causing me to rush out periodically. After losing the original female I bought a couple more, both males. They were sold to me as females but guinea keets are hard to sex, and it is better to get them as keets so you have at least some chance of training them to stick around. Even if you have them from very young they always retain a wild spirit, they don't become as domestic...