Showing posts with label hens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hens. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Three Is A Magic Number
Egg production has tripled over the past two weeks, from 6 to 12 and now 18 eggs in a week. The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that three of the hens are now laying almost daily, which suggests that a few more eggs may yet still be on their way. So I'm now in the happy situation of having more eggs than I can get through on my own and can distribute free eggs to those people who've been kind enough to let me have supermarket egg cartons that they would otherwise have thrown away. (It must be one of the spin offs of us living in a recycling culture now that people think nothing of saving empty egg boxes, although we used to collect old cereal boxes for school from time to time when I was a kid).
However I've also become more aware of a problem that my ex wife alerted me to when she was tending the chickens while we were away in Tenerife. It seems that there is a Gang of Three operating within the group, with one chicken being picked on by the others as a result. One of the two white-tailed chickens (Angie) seems to be the dominant one, and Penny seems to be hen pecked by the others.
The hens generally lay their eggs mid morning and Angie was clucking loudly away, which is the only time they generally make any noise unless they're alarmed by something. A plastic football in the garden was a source of distress to them every time the wind got up and blew it across the lawn, but that irritation was removed when my son took a kitchen knife to it. It seems that a visit to the nesting boxes necessitates some urgent clucking by Angie, who seems to have assumed this role in the absence of a cockerel. Although I've just read a website that suggests that if I spend enough time in the garden with them then I'll be the dominant one, so we'll have to see.
There is obviously a gang culture operating, with Penny chased away be the other birds. Sometimes they'll be sat in the sun having a dirt bath while she's at the other end of the garden on her own. What it's like to have no mates!
Sunday, 4 March 2012
No More Lie Ins
It's seven thirty and I'm out of bed on a Sunday morning. I haven't done this since my son was tiny and needed entertaining, feeding or his nappy changing. But being a chicken keeper places a certain degree of responsibility on one's shoulders, and on a weekend therefore I get up at least two hours earlier than I might have done otherwise to let them out.
It has been a difficult few weeks for me and the chickens. The weather hasn't been too good, with more wet days than dry ones since I last blogged, which has resulted in the garden becoming a quagmire where I've walked across the lawn to the chicken run. Not that the chickens have done anything to help on that score. They scratch at any patch of land looking for food. In terms of clearing out dead leaves from the undergrowth, they've done a fantastic job, but I've also had to place wire netting over the main flower bed to stop this being scratched out and to preserve the primula that have been pushing their way up.
Egg production has fallen right away, initially tailing off to one every three days and more recently to none at all. I haven't had an egg in two weeks. (Having asked friends and colleagues to save their egg boxes for me, I've now amassed quite a collection which grows into an increasingly vertiginous pile on the top of the refrigerator). Whilst the prospect of egg cartons collapsing on me is a growing risk, I'm not worried about the lack of eggs to place in them - yet. Two of the hens have moulted over the past month and have only now grown their new feathers back, and various articles I've read suggest that the chickens won't lay in winter, so I'll only start to be concerned when the weather turns warmer. Yesterday's Guardian had an article saying you should think of chickens as pets rather than profit, and in terms of income and expenditure that has certainly been my experience. The other stuff I've read suggesting that I'll have more eggs than I'll know what to do with sounds like the rantings of evangelists.
There has been one moment of real panic in the past few weeks. The chickens stay in their run when we're not at home, but as the evenings have become increasingly light, Bill lets them out for a while when he gets home from school. On one such evenng, he had let them out but not put them away again when it got dark. It was pitch black when I went out to put them away. I could only find three of them ensconced in the hen house. It was a bitterly cold evening and the thought that one of them had chosen to roost in a tree on a night like this made me fear for its safety. There was no evidence of feathers in the garden, which led me to conclude that it had made a bid for freedom and hopped over the garden fence rather than been predates, but a quick survey of nearby trees, shining my faltering torchlight into the lower branches, revealed nothing, as did my peering over the fence into the two adjoining gardens. Bill and his friend Bruce were despatched to search neighbouring gardens and knock on doors, which they dutifully did. When they came back chicken less I had to tell Bill that I thought that was the last we'd see of her.
Next morning it was still quite dark when I got up, thinking that by allowing myself an extra 15 minutes before I set off for work, I could have a further look for the missing chicken or its remains. It was as I was opening the door to the coop to let the others out into their run that the missing bird emerged from the wood hut where she'd chosen to roost for the night. The only place I hadn't looked! Since then, I have clipped their wings, as my friend Jenny - who has kept chickens for twenty plus years - said that the advice of the hen refuge place I got the chickens from not to clip their feathers was 'silly'. In casevi have to do another search of the local trees, I've also invested in a new torch.
Bill and I have also been away for a week's holiday in Tenerife during this time, so early on we've had to face up to the question - who's going to feed the chickens while we're gone? This seems to be a concern that all chicken keepers agonise about, and which prevents some peole from getting chickens at all, but I am lucky enough to have my ex wife Kathleen and Bill has his school friend Bruce, each of whom live nearby, who were enthusiastic volunteers. Kathleen has fed and watered the cat previously, so knew the drill regarding getting into the house. For Bruce, I put a new lock on the side gate so that he could get into the garden without having to come via the front door. Although I then left him the wrong key (which seems not to have stopped him getting not the garden!). The novelty of being temporary chicken farmers seems to have persuaded both that they enjoyed looking after the chickens, even if they weren't rewarded with fresh eggs every day as I'd perhaps suggested they might be. "You can keep anything they lay," I'd said.
In the event, there was only one fresh egg that week and, as I've said above, egg production generally has declined. Poo production, on the other hand, continues apace. The birds insist on roosting in their nesting boxes, and when it stops raining for long enough, I'm going to modify the hen house so that the perches are higher, since I've read that that may be the reason they choose to sleep in the nesting boxes. I've told Kathleen, again based on information gleaned from websites, that chicken poo is an excellent accelerant for the compost heap, and so she's asked me to supply her with a bagful. We got divorced because of all the shit I was giving her, and now she's asking me for shit!
It has been a difficult few weeks for me and the chickens. The weather hasn't been too good, with more wet days than dry ones since I last blogged, which has resulted in the garden becoming a quagmire where I've walked across the lawn to the chicken run. Not that the chickens have done anything to help on that score. They scratch at any patch of land looking for food. In terms of clearing out dead leaves from the undergrowth, they've done a fantastic job, but I've also had to place wire netting over the main flower bed to stop this being scratched out and to preserve the primula that have been pushing their way up.
Egg production has fallen right away, initially tailing off to one every three days and more recently to none at all. I haven't had an egg in two weeks. (Having asked friends and colleagues to save their egg boxes for me, I've now amassed quite a collection which grows into an increasingly vertiginous pile on the top of the refrigerator). Whilst the prospect of egg cartons collapsing on me is a growing risk, I'm not worried about the lack of eggs to place in them - yet. Two of the hens have moulted over the past month and have only now grown their new feathers back, and various articles I've read suggest that the chickens won't lay in winter, so I'll only start to be concerned when the weather turns warmer. Yesterday's Guardian had an article saying you should think of chickens as pets rather than profit, and in terms of income and expenditure that has certainly been my experience. The other stuff I've read suggesting that I'll have more eggs than I'll know what to do with sounds like the rantings of evangelists.
There has been one moment of real panic in the past few weeks. The chickens stay in their run when we're not at home, but as the evenings have become increasingly light, Bill lets them out for a while when he gets home from school. On one such evenng, he had let them out but not put them away again when it got dark. It was pitch black when I went out to put them away. I could only find three of them ensconced in the hen house. It was a bitterly cold evening and the thought that one of them had chosen to roost in a tree on a night like this made me fear for its safety. There was no evidence of feathers in the garden, which led me to conclude that it had made a bid for freedom and hopped over the garden fence rather than been predates, but a quick survey of nearby trees, shining my faltering torchlight into the lower branches, revealed nothing, as did my peering over the fence into the two adjoining gardens. Bill and his friend Bruce were despatched to search neighbouring gardens and knock on doors, which they dutifully did. When they came back chicken less I had to tell Bill that I thought that was the last we'd see of her.
Next morning it was still quite dark when I got up, thinking that by allowing myself an extra 15 minutes before I set off for work, I could have a further look for the missing chicken or its remains. It was as I was opening the door to the coop to let the others out into their run that the missing bird emerged from the wood hut where she'd chosen to roost for the night. The only place I hadn't looked! Since then, I have clipped their wings, as my friend Jenny - who has kept chickens for twenty plus years - said that the advice of the hen refuge place I got the chickens from not to clip their feathers was 'silly'. In casevi have to do another search of the local trees, I've also invested in a new torch.
Bill and I have also been away for a week's holiday in Tenerife during this time, so early on we've had to face up to the question - who's going to feed the chickens while we're gone? This seems to be a concern that all chicken keepers agonise about, and which prevents some peole from getting chickens at all, but I am lucky enough to have my ex wife Kathleen and Bill has his school friend Bruce, each of whom live nearby, who were enthusiastic volunteers. Kathleen has fed and watered the cat previously, so knew the drill regarding getting into the house. For Bruce, I put a new lock on the side gate so that he could get into the garden without having to come via the front door. Although I then left him the wrong key (which seems not to have stopped him getting not the garden!). The novelty of being temporary chicken farmers seems to have persuaded both that they enjoyed looking after the chickens, even if they weren't rewarded with fresh eggs every day as I'd perhaps suggested they might be. "You can keep anything they lay," I'd said.
In the event, there was only one fresh egg that week and, as I've said above, egg production generally has declined. Poo production, on the other hand, continues apace. The birds insist on roosting in their nesting boxes, and when it stops raining for long enough, I'm going to modify the hen house so that the perches are higher, since I've read that that may be the reason they choose to sleep in the nesting boxes. I've told Kathleen, again based on information gleaned from websites, that chicken poo is an excellent accelerant for the compost heap, and so she's asked me to supply her with a bagful. We got divorced because of all the shit I was giving her, and now she's asking me for shit!
Monday, 16 January 2012
Waiting For The Man
On Saturday I got some chickens. Yesterday I got my first eggs. Today I'm waiting for the henhouse to arrive.
Yes there's nothing like doing things out of sequence when you've decided to rehome four ex battery hens.
The sun is shining and it's a lovely day for putting up a chicken coop (self assembly required, although it should come flat packed). Unfortunately the daylight is only going to last for another three hours so if the Parcelforce man doesn't arrive soon then the chickens are going to be overnighting in the tool shed again, which isn't ideal for them or for the tools they're roosting on and, shall we say, 'dropping' on.
Hens produce a lot of guano, you see. I toyed with buying a house in Norfolk once that had a long garden which backed onto open fields. I was put off it by the fact that said fields were a wintering point for a particular species of goose, some 4,000 of which were inclined to congregate in said fields and each producing fresh droppings every 20 minutes. If the geese stayed for a month that was 4,000 geese times 72 bowel movements a day times 30 days. If each dump produced 20g of goose poo - well, that's a lot. And since I didn't have any confidence that the geese would respect the boundary between my garden and the farmer's field, I didn't pursue the idea of buying this former railwayman's cottage, in splendid rural isolation with only three other cottages and a level crossing for company, any further.
Anyway, back to the hens. There are four of them, like I said, and they have tentatively been named Jolene, Angie, Penny and Shirley. Jolene is so named because she has a limp and leans when she walks. The others have acquired their names because my ex wife suggested they be named after women in song titles. So Angie is a Rolling Stones girl, Penny from Penny Lane by the Beatles and Shirley is named after the Billy Bragg song Greetings To The New Brunette. Quite apt, really, considering their colour.
Now where is that Parcelforce delivery driver?
Yes there's nothing like doing things out of sequence when you've decided to rehome four ex battery hens.
The sun is shining and it's a lovely day for putting up a chicken coop (self assembly required, although it should come flat packed). Unfortunately the daylight is only going to last for another three hours so if the Parcelforce man doesn't arrive soon then the chickens are going to be overnighting in the tool shed again, which isn't ideal for them or for the tools they're roosting on and, shall we say, 'dropping' on.
Hens produce a lot of guano, you see. I toyed with buying a house in Norfolk once that had a long garden which backed onto open fields. I was put off it by the fact that said fields were a wintering point for a particular species of goose, some 4,000 of which were inclined to congregate in said fields and each producing fresh droppings every 20 minutes. If the geese stayed for a month that was 4,000 geese times 72 bowel movements a day times 30 days. If each dump produced 20g of goose poo - well, that's a lot. And since I didn't have any confidence that the geese would respect the boundary between my garden and the farmer's field, I didn't pursue the idea of buying this former railwayman's cottage, in splendid rural isolation with only three other cottages and a level crossing for company, any further.
Anyway, back to the hens. There are four of them, like I said, and they have tentatively been named Jolene, Angie, Penny and Shirley. Jolene is so named because she has a limp and leans when she walks. The others have acquired their names because my ex wife suggested they be named after women in song titles. So Angie is a Rolling Stones girl, Penny from Penny Lane by the Beatles and Shirley is named after the Billy Bragg song Greetings To The New Brunette. Quite apt, really, considering their colour.
Now where is that Parcelforce delivery driver?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)