Day One

Today is sunday the 9th of may.

Hammond has settled in nicely on her brood but has not been off the eggs for 24 hours. At 2pm I get her off to have a 15 minute break to eat and drink. I don't shut her eggs from her, but when it is time to get back on the nest she has forgotton the location of her new coop and follows May and Clarkson to the main shed. She jumps onto a nest in thhere but after turning round she flaps off. It takes me a minute to catch her and return her to the eggs but she seems relieved and sits right back on them.

It is now six pm and she again has not moved. I think I will lift her off every day a 2pm to eat and drink because I am nearvous that as bantams are such good sitters, she will neglect her own welfare. I have heard they can dehydrate after 21 days. Today as soon as she was off, she ate heaps and heaps and had a good poo. Hopefully she will start to come off herself for a few minutes each day because I don't like to think I would put her off sitting by removing her.

We candeled an unfertilised egg to get the practice, and to see if anything is visible. I will try to do this once or twice a week when she iss off the nest so we can watch the development of any chicks, and also to weed out any that are not developing.

I did think it might be possible to substitute any that don't have embryos in with others from the fertilised egg box, but I am undecided because or the time gap in incubation. I would not want her to come off the last few eggs once the first ones had hatched, especially if they were almost fully grown.