Chicken Diary Part III

This little fella (or lass) looks very grumpy.
Hatched last night.

Polands
When our last batch of a dozen blue eggs all failed to hatch, we took six white eggs as part replacement. And just look what emerged overnight!

This is a Poland and will grow up to have the most ridiculous hairstyle. I'm not really into fancy chickens, but these are ultra friendly, small (so low feed costs) and lay white eggs. Another two eggs are peeping, but I'll be a bit disappointed if I only get three.

These Indian Games have me a bit confused.

When is a hen not a hen?
Down in the chicken pen, our oldest two Indian Games don't look quite right for their breed. Obviously related in some way, but not the real deal. The hen has started crowing. Although this can happen, it is entirely possible that she will be a he! I was going on feather colouration, but if they're not quite what they're supposed to be...
Meanwhile the cock has not crowed once! Matters should become clearer in the next couple of weeks, but a realignment of loyalties may be needed as it is unlikely we will keep the cockerel (which may actually be the ultra friendly ex-hen).

Egg diary

Things are looking a little better on the egg production front now. We are getting three a day and sometimes four. I am still keeping my chicken diary and have worked out that Speckledy lays medium, speckled eggs, Honey lays large, pale eggs and Chestnut lays slightly dark eggs with pale speckles. Elvis lays very distinctive, small pale eggs.

Intermittently other eggs appear too, so I've implemented a system of isolating a couple of chickens at a time to see who is laying what. This morning I think Mrs Brown laid an egg. If not her, then it was Hazel.

The five Welsummers and one of the younger Indian Games
at the entrance to their self-made den.

How to catch 26 chickens
Yesterday morning Sue and I had great fun and games. I wanted to dust all the chickens for lice now that they have finished their course of worm treatment (see, it's not all cute, cuddly rural idyll). This meant catching each one and holding upside down by the legs (this is not cruel) while Sue administered generous amounts of powder.
I remembered not to let them all out at sunrise, and at 7 o'clock we began. The tactic was to open the door to a henhouse and grab the first chicken to exit. This worked very smoothly for the old hens, even the cockerel who has some quite sizeable spurs to avoid.

But the youngsters fairly quickly cottoned on to what was happening and retreated to the parts of their house too distant for my reach. We managed to do about half of them, but the only way to catch the rest was to grab them as they shot through the door.
But these chickens are more intelligent than the average chicken!

Two managed to bolt past us and evade our grip. They then took refuge in the den they've constructed for themselves, where they are totally uncatchable. However, eventually a combination of pestering, poking, cadjoling and chasing came together and the job was done.

They may have lost a bit of dignity, but all are now spick-and-span and none the worse for wear.

Next time we catch a chicken it may well be one for the pot!

And finally...
When did these two grow so big?