our playgroup had the living eggs program and i adopted the 3 ginger chicks which i was assured were hens (goldline hybrids) but when they started to get their wing feathers one had dark brown stripey wings! the company said this was a babcock but i notice from your chick pics that your hen chicks have dark splodges on their heads and eyeliner! mine was just plain ginger, does this mean she is a cockeral?

I have just read the comment 1 on picture gallery 3 re Babcock layers. Do I understand this right then that the markings on this breed is a sure fire way of sexing the little beauties?

with the Babcock's Theresa, it isn't the markings that tell the sex, it's the colour! Hen Babcock's are brown and when tiny they have the brown stripe along the top of their head, but cock Babcock's are a different colour, white or creamy I believe. That's what the hatchery told us when I asked last time we went.

Babcock's are one of the breeds that are colour sexed, which is more reliable than the feather sexing that they do with the White Amberlinks. Amberlink cockerals are white too, and in this current flock we have 3 cockerals because they are sexed by their wing feathers and it isn't so easy
to tell, that's why you get the occasional cockeral.

I am hoping to buy some ex bats this year , do you know anywhere near leeds that I can get some? Also I am very good at DIY and can build my own but do you know of a good design for a hen house and run for 6 hens (max)?

Thanks
Mark B

Hi Mark, thank you for your query. The Battery Hen Welfare Trust have Regional Co-ordinators, but I don't think there is one very near Leeds

Here is a link to their co-ordinators. You could call one of them and sometimes they have like half way houses, where they will drop off hens somewhere and you go pick them up. when we got our last lot, they only charged 50p per bird.

http://www.bhwt.org.uk/rescue-dates.php

There are a few other rescue places, but the only other one I know of is in Norfolk.

As to houses, most of the people we know just use small garden sheds 6ft by 4ft is the most popular size, but basically you are looking at at LEAST 1sq ft per hen in the house, but ideally more! must be draft free, but they still need good ventilation to stop condensation forming. Easy to clean floor, so nto too many nooks and crannies. nest boxes. For 6 hens 2 woud be enough and they are usualy about 12 inches sq and perhps 15 inches high. they like it dark when they are laying too. My husband usually fits the next boxes to the outside of the house with a flap to collect the eggs. The should have a perch which is 2inches square, with the top edges champhered off so it doesn't hurt their feet.

Here a few links you may be interested in!

http://www.henhouses.com/Build_A_Hen_House.htm

http://www.buildeazy.com/chicken_coop_metric_1.html

The run should be at least 1 sq metre per bird, but we like to give ours as much room as possible to roam around and some chickens can fly over a 6ft fence, so ideally if you can, put netting over the top. It needs to be easily accessible for you to get inside to clean and attend to your birds. Also chicken wire isn't much good for keeping foxes out, it just keeps chickens in!

Hope this helps a bit! Take Care and good luck Ann