From strength to strength

Little Chirpy, now 10 days old, continues to grow at an amazing rate. His wings are now well feathered and I can see his tail feathers just starting to grow. He is absolutely full of beans and a joy to watch. I lift him out of the brooder for a little run around sometimes and he is unbelievably fast on his feet. He can jump and fly a couple of feet or so, which is good fun for him but frightening for me to watch! He has taken to perching on top of the Ecoglow heater so I'm thinking of putting a little wooden perch in the brooder for him.

It's quite hard to know how much he is eating. I use a terracotta plant pot tray as a feeder and as soon as I give him a fresh tray of chick crumbs he gets into the tray and scrapes the chick crumbs out all over the floor of the brooder. The following photo was taken "mid scrape", only seconds after giving him a tray of fresh food.

I clean out the brooder and give him fresh food and water at least once a day. Quite a lot of chick crumbs were going to waste, so I put some of the "slightly used" crumbs in under a hedge for the wild birds to eat and they love them. Just as well I bought a 25kg bag!

I'm very sad to say that my sick Barnevelder hen passed away last night. I had hoped that she was on the mend, but she had become very weak and although she had a strong will to live she finally succumbed. She will be sadly missed.