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I'd kept a lot of rare breed poultry in the past, and also waterfowl. We had a smallholding with goats and sheep. Keeping poultry was so rewarding, especially when any of our birds we took to shows won the top prizes.

Now I just keep a few pekins of mixed colours for my own pleasure, they're good little layers, but go broody so often you can't rely on them for a regular supply of lovely free range eggs.

I bought some fertile eggs to start my Pekin collection from various places, including Ebay. Hatchability was not good, mainly due to the eggs arriving via Royal Mail. But I soon hatched a lovely selection of a dozen birds of different colours. My aim was to keep a small flock and to try and have one of each colour if possible.

I hatched the eggs in a Hovabator still air incubator, set to 101 degrees at the top of the egg, and didn't add any water to the trays, as in the UK we have enough humidity. I marked the eggs with a 'X' one side and a '0' the other, to make it easier to see they had all been turned. I turned them 3 times a day. On the 18th day I stopped turning them and added enough water to the trays to give 65% humidity to help hatching. This was about a tablespoon of warm water. I checked the humidity with a hygrometer that I bought from Amazon for about £3, and one used for reptiles. It proved a good little gadget and quite accurate.

On day 21 the chicks hatched, apart from one late hatcher. I kept the chicks in the incubator for 24hrs to allow them to fluff up, (they're wet and sticky when they first hatch and quite weak). The next evening the late hatcher still hadn't hatched but had made a small hole in the egg. So I helped her out. (thankfully it was a hen chick).

They stayed in a brooder box with a heatlamp for 4 weeks, reducing the heat each week to wean them off heat. Once they were almost feathered up I moved them into a puppy exercise pen in the garage, and grew them on in there until this weekend when they go out into their proper hen house and run in the garden.

I have 5 more chicks 2 weeks old in the brooder box, golden partridge and one silver partridge pekin, so they will be moving into the garage in the next couple of weeks or so.

The Pekin Bantam doesnt like getting it's feet wet. As they are heavily feathered if they get wet and muddy they suffer from a variety of foot problems, they also don't like drafts, so the hen house has to be draft free but with some ventilation.

If you want to show your Pekins, its advisable not to give them perches like other chicken, as when they push and shove each other on the perch they damage the foot feathers, which are quite brittle and break easily.

My Pekin run is about 17ft long x 7ft wide and 3ft high. Half of this is covered with clear corrugated pvc to keep it dry and the other half open to the elements. The complete run is made of weldmesh and wood frame with chicken wire across the roof to keep wild birds out and stop them getting Avian Flu from wild birds. It's also relatively fox proof.

They have their food hopper suspended from the run to discourage vermin, and I will take the hopper indoors every night when the Pekins go to bed. Their water hopper is on legs so it doesnt get full of bits of grass, straw or anything else they flick about when scratching outside.

At the moment the colours I have are: Lavendar, Blue, White, Lemon Cuckoo, Brown/Red, Millefleur, Gold Partridge and Silver Partridge, Black Frizzle and Lavendar Frizzle.