Sunday morning I got up hoping to see the baby on the loft but it was still nowhere to be seen, I didn't let them out as we had quite alot of running around to do but did open one trap just incase the baby returned. I fed the birds at the usual time in the evening, between half 4 and 5 but as the baby still wasn't around and I didn't want tye feral birds going in I shut the trap. About an hour later just before dark I went down the loft for one more look around and was surprised and happy to see the little blue sitting on top of the chicken house, I managed to catch it and return it safely with the other birds.
I have now officially started my breeding and have a few youngsters in the nest from just under 3 weeks to 1 day old. I wrung 5 babies yesterday, I have 6 that are 1 to 2 days, 1 pair of eggs chipping tonight with another pair due to hatch in a couple of days. I have had a couple of eggs not hatch and a couple of babies that I'd moved under a couple of my race pairs that were sitting overdue that unfortunately died, the pairs seemed to accept them initially and did feed them for a day or two but then killed them
I've never had this problem before but this is the second year running I've had it with this current family of birds so although I like every race pair to rear a baby I won't be messing around like that again. I'm not planning on breeding many youngsters this year so apart from a few pairs that will have a second round that will be most of my breeding for this year. With the babies from George and half a dozen I'm hoping to get from Rich (Bryn from the old forum) in late April I will have plenty for this season. Well that's a quick update, here are a few photos.
