Who remembers the photo of the pretty basket of fluffy chicks I posted at Easter time! Twelve weeks on and I thought I would write about our experience.

This was our first venture into the world of incubating eggs to add to our flock of hens although not the first in having chicks. Two years ago, we gave some fertile eggs to our top hen Betty when she became broody and she did all the work from then on: incubating the eggs, turning them, talking to them (did you know hens do that?) and raising the chicks that hatched. …