Northumbrian Notes

AT THE time of writing, all my final-round youngsters are weaned off and all the Norwich hens are in flight cages, with the feeder canaries returned to a flight. The last four nests were a mixed bag: two “mixed” nests and the last two a five and a two only. These last two nests were a waste of time, unfortunately: the two were infertile and the five had four fertile eggs, but only one hatched and that chick ended up on the cage floor so many times that it was inevitable I would lose it.

The earlier mixed nests were more successful and the mixed parentage was reflected in a variety of colours. I set eggs from mixed pairs under two feeder pairs and reared two green/