At Hereford: Cockerel to go.....x

Hereford poultry market is a place full of a wonderful variety of characters of both the beaked kind and the human kind too.

I was looking for some day old chicks to put in with my 'one' chick. Really you shouldn't advocate the selling of 'day olds' since the little lives in the box have a hopeless chance of making it home alive.

All chicks need the heat of their mother hen, or a heat lamp and nothing short of that keep them alive. The 'day olds' come in tiny boxes. This is so that they are bundled tightly together, and that without a heat source that at least they would keep each other warm. Naturally the chicks on the outside of the bundle dies off first.

So as you might imagine... time was of the essence. The Legbar chicks and some call duck day olds were bought and bundled into the car asap. The heater in the car on full, the children holding the sleepy chicks in front of the heat vents in the car.

Luckily, our race against time, and Ells and Sam's reviving skills paid off. Surprisingly I am typing with all chicks still alive.

Needless to say, the cockerel so cleverly boxed up at the market would not have met a happy fate. Most cockerels are sold for meat at 50p or less a bird. I hope that my chicks dont all end up being cockerels!.....