The Young Ones

I've had an explosion of broody bantams this year. Most hide away in the garden with only an occasional scream to alert you as to where they are but few have the tenacity to actually go sit through to a hatch. Imagine my surprise when last summer's chick "Mohawk" (named by my friend Rose) turned up on a hot Saturday afternoon in late October with eight chicks in tow. I managed to coral them into a cage in my carport where they were safe from rats and my neighbour's psycho cat. Unfortunately the chicks weren't safe from their mother's big feet as she constantly stood on them. She managed to break the foot of one small gray chick when it was a week old. Not much that could be done but the little creature coped and would get in amongst the others despite its disability. Then Mohawk stood on two others when they were several weeks old but this time caused internal damage so they passed away. Now she's calming down and they babies are big enough to know to get from under their mother's feet!

I've been trying to get some of my angora girls in kit and finally Ivory from Ebony's first litter managed to get pregnant. Unfortunately she had her babies during the night on 5th October and scattered them over the floor of the cage instead of having them in the nest box so they all died before I could rescue them. I left her a few weeks until putting her back with Baldrick, my agouti buck, and kept an eye on her as she ballooned. On the evening of 8th December I was out at an awards ceremony for the Onga Onga Fire Brigade so didn't check her until 12.30am when she was starting to pluck herself and throw the fibre all over the cage floor again. This time I stayed up and went out at 1.30am to find she'd produced eight kits all of which were alive in a pile on the cage floor. I checked them over and put them into the nest box, covering them with fibre. Next morning they were all fed and warm Ivory finally getting the idea that the nest box was where they were meant to be.

The litter consisted of four white, two agouti, one blue and one black kit. However two of the white kits were small and at four days the smallest died during the night. The other died at ten days of age when the others were opening their eyes.

The others meanwhile blossomed and at two weeks were beginning to pop out of their nest box to try and hassle their Mum for milk. The blue was the ring leader for these sorties being very inquisitive.

Ivory has proved a wonderful first time Mum, very caring despite the rocky start. But I am feeling sorry for her now as she sometimes looks overwhelmed when several kits try to burrow under her for a sneaky feed. Especially as they're born with teeth. It's not easy being a Mum.