It's hard to imagine, but these quail are only just over five weeks old. They look just like adults, and they'll soon be laying their first eggs. It's amazing how quickly they've grown, and while they're not quite the size of adults yet, they'll soon be full size.

Another victory for the Hovabator incubator - silkie x light sussex chicks

We've just had some new arrivals from the hovabator incubator in the form of two "gold top" silkie x light sussex bantam chicks. Provided that they are not cockerels, these birds will go on to form part of a project to rear gamebirds the traditional way - under clocker bantams. Silkie x light sussex bantams are well known for their good broody skills, and crosses like these have been used for generations.

It will be next year before these chicks will be useful, and there is plenty of work to be done.

A quail chick at around three days old - tiny, but growing like a weed.

After eighteen days in the incubator, disaster struck. A day before the eggs were due to hatch, the incubator was accidentally switched off overnight. The temperature fell to just 25 degrees and stayed there for around ten hours. Despairing and distraught, our first reaction was to call the whole project off, but it transpired that all hope was not lost. Turning the incubator straight back on, it had reached almost 37.7 degrees in just under an hour. The following morning, the eggs started to chip.

It seems that unhatched chicks can deal with drops in temperature the closer they get to hatching. If the same accident had happened in the first week of the incubation, things would have been dismally different. As it was, just two chicks died when the incubator went off, and six out of twelve hatched the following evening. Two eggs were infertile and two others had died early on in the process, so we decided that the success rate wasn't all that bad, accidents aside.

The little birds are now making merry, and are growing at an incredible rate. They are supposed to be fully grown at six weeks, and it's not hard to see that happening...

Our new chicken house - complete with perches, nest boxes and plenty of room for feeders and drinkers.

Having looked around for an easy to assemble chicken house for our customers, we recently found a great package from a manufacturer in Spain. We'll be selling the new integrated coop and run on the site as soon as we've done some more tests on it, but we're already very impressed with what we've seen.

The chicken house is supplied in two flat packs, and it takes a surprisingly short time to assemble. All holes are predrilled and dowel pegs are fitted to help you work out what fits where. In ten minutes, we had built the main structure, and the nest box took just a few more minutes to bolt together. What we really liked about this chicken house is that you only really need a screwdriver to build it. Once the roof was fixed into position, the entire house not only looked good, but it gives chickens enough space to be quite comfortable.

Large enough for a trio of bantams, we hope that this chicken house will be really useful for our customers, or for any smallholder. There is plenty of room for feeders and drinkers, and the inbuilt perches allow birds to roost in comfort. The fact that you can close off the indoor quarters gives an element of safety at night, and the upstairs compartment has a removable floor for easy cleaning.

Not only does the chicken house look great for poultry, but we've also found over the past few weeks that it makes a great home for ferrets. Ferrets need to be kept in very robust housing, and the fact that they have not managed to escape or damage the enclosure in any way says a great deal about its durability and strength. You could say that it has passed the "ferret test" with flying colours!

Over the next few days, we will be adding this fantastic chicken house to our website, making it available for purchase online. More details will follow...