Repairs to the Henhouse

Alan has been busy recently, both in his workshop and doing the day job, which he now does from home, but last week he found time to do some running repairs to the henhouse.

The house has sat there in all weathers and in constant use for the last few years, and the thing that gets used the most by lots of little feet and sits there in all weathers ... usually rain ... is the ramp the birds use to get into their house.  It had started swelling as it absorbed more and more of the rain we get here in not so sunny North Wales, and basically it was about to fall to pieces.

So using the old one as a pattern, he used wood he already had to manufacture an exact copy and last weekend, after it had had many, many layers of varnish to weatherproof it, he fixed it in place on the henhouse. 

Here he is on the way out carrying the old ramp in his right hand and his kneeling mat in the other.

I don't know if anyone has noticed but we have also added a corrugated roof to the henhouse ready for this Winter as the wooden one, even though treated, was starting to let in rain.  The new corrugated one was put in place over the original to give the birds an extra layer of protection from the elements.

It has proved a godsend over the last few days.  As you can see from this photo the snow sat on top of the roof, meaning that the warmth that the birds generate themselves overnight by huddling together, stayed in the house keeping them warm rather than dissipating and melting the snow on the roof.

I don't know about you but I hate to see houses, whether they be henhouses or human houses, with no snow on their roofs during a cold spell ... it's a sure sign that the occupants are paying to heat the world instead of keeping themselves nice and warm.

Sue xx

Chicken at the Window ....

Chicken at the window  ...

... chicken at the door.

You can almost hear Mavis shouting 'hey Mum there's a chicken at the door' can't you  ;-)

Ten minutes later there was a chicken in the house ... cheeky madam!!

Going this way and that, she obviously liked the feeling of the door mat under her tootsies.

Mavis was peering outside to see if any more are on their way while Suky watched on in amusement.

Even posing for a photo ...

... before eventually going back outside.

Strolling nonchalantly passed the old Belfast sink ...

...while over in Chicken World the rest of the flock watched with interest.

"Has the chicken gone yet Mum?"

Just another day in our mad house  :-)

Sue xx

Chicken Stocktake 2017

I try at least once a year to do a Chicken Stocktake, mostly to fix in my head the numbers and types of our ever changing flock of chickens.  The old girls die, youngsters are born or accidents happen like last weeks and we lose a girl suddenly.

Some good news to share with you all is that we got one of our stolen girls back :-)

She had been chucked over the hedge into a field of sheep and one of our neighbours spotted her fending for herself and let us know.  It took Alan literally two minutes to catch her and bring her home ... where she got stuck into the Layers Pellets like a thing possessed.

So with her return to the flock it seemed like a good time to do this years stocktake.

Heading his harem of lovely ladies is Jack, the Lavender Pekin Bantam cockerel,  who is now a magnificent mature specimen of miniature manhood.

Once again, thank goodness, we have four 'Green Girls'.

We have four 'Blue Girls'. they are named as such from the bands on their legs, so we can remember when we bought them, although in this instance the purchases were only two weeks apart. 

These are all Calder Rangers.

We have one Light Sussex cross.

We have two older Calder Rangers.

Our older girl is Harriet the Light Sussex, she's approximately six years old now.

There is Jack's sister Jill.

We have one remaining Skyline, our blue egg layer.

We have two of last years 'Welsh Girls'.

We also have Poppy, another Lavender Pekin Bantam and one of our original girls, born way back in 2011.

There is one Large Black Maran left from 'The Gang', and she is feeling very sorry for herself with her sister and best friend gone.

And last but not least, there is Ebony, the Black Pekin Bantam, usually to be found in the nesting boxes ... she not particularly broody, but just likes her own company most of the time.

And that completes this years stocktake -

1 cockerel

3 Pekin Bantams

16 large chickens

(of which 12 are regular layers)

And after munching their way through lots of spinach leaves while I got these photos, the chickens all then trooped back off into the woods to carry on with their chickeny business for the day.

Sue xx

Chickens and Apples

We went and picked up four more new chickens the other day, we needed to as we lost two of our layers last week.  Well sadly we lost three of our girls in one fell swoop but the large Black Maran's laying days were behind her.  We don't know what happened but I have a sneaking suspicion that they were stolen  :-(

The mystery started with one of our huge Black Marans being spotted absolutely flattened on the road by our neighbour as she walked back to her house after visiting us to buy some eggs.  She thought it was her black cat and telephoned asking if we would go and have a look for her as it was in a very dangerous spot near the corner.  We did and realised what it was at once thanks to the very large white legs and feet still being recognisable.

Later that day I realised that two more of our birds were missing, one of the new 'Green Girls' and one of last years 'Welsh girls'.  The mystery deepened but putting two and two together and wearing my very best Miss Marple hat ... I much prefer that to a deerstalker ... I have concluded that if I were stealing myself a little flock of hens I too would choose one black, one brown and one a nicely co-ordinating black and brown.  But I would not take such a huge bird that as I was crossing the road it would easily struggle free and unfortunately get splattered by a passing car or truck.

I am making quite light of it, I need to if I want to retain what little sanity I have left, but it's hard to lose three of our girls, especially my lovely little new girl who was the sweetest of the quartet.

So now we also have in residence over in Chicken World the 'Blue Girls' ... four more Calder Rangers.  Bringing our numbers back up to eighteen girls and Jack the cockerel .... who once again immediately set to making his newest wives very welcome. 

Also over in Chicken World, the apple trees are looking wonderful, and I couldn't resist snapping off a few photos while I was there.

The apples are turning rosy red and filling out nicely on the branches, with the occasional windfall making a very nice snack for the chickens.

The trees are literally dripping with apples, the more you look the more you see.

Lovely and red and just asking to be picked, and they are ... frequently. 

It's nice to grab one for an impromptu snack after cleaning out the henhouse or when I'm on the way over to the polytunnel.

Also filling out nicely are the cooking apples, and I can see a freezer full of apple slices, crumbles and pies coming up in the next few months after a bit of work in the kitchen.

Chickens

...and Apples

Sue xx

The New Girls

A little 'chickeny interlude' between the 'Tour of the Plot' posts to introduce you to our new girls.

  Bought today from the same place we buy all our chickens here in Wales, they are four Calder Rangers.  A Calder ranger is a hybrid hen that lays well all through the year and because it has been born and raised here in North Wales won't stop laying for the colder months as our 'softer' Southern girls do.

They were confined to the henhouse for half an hour after we got back home with them, to give them time to get their breath back after a bit of a slidey journey in the back of the truck.  It's all uphill and down dale from our farm to their former home and there was nothing else in the truck to keep the crate still, so the it moved around a bit with each decent   ;-)

After half an hour in the henhouse I opened the front door for them, and once we had retreated to outer Chicken World, three of the girls came tentatively down the ramp and started to explore their new surroundings.

After a few minutes I went back into the inner area and encouraged the one girl left in the house to join her sisters, as I wanted them all to explore together.

They have most likely never been on grass before as they have been raised in a large open-fronted barn (because of the recent poultry restrictions),  so it was nice watching them tugging at blades of grass and eating them, pulling bits out of each others beaks as they each thought the other had something more tasty to share.

After an hour or so in inner Chicken World and lots of exploration of their new surroundings I opened the gate and they trouped out en-masse to larger Chicken World where they were immediately joined by Jack and his current band of wives. 

There were a few skirmishes, as is the way when you introduce new birds to an established flock, but as ever the gentleman, Jack stepped in to calm things down and took a couple of his new ladies literally under his wing to feed them titbits from the grass and calm things down.

"New wives ... all for me!!"

Now they are all mooching about in the lovely sunshine, enjoying fresh grass and corn and tentatively forging new friendships.  We will just have to check at dusk to make sure the new girls get into the bedtime routine of settling down in the henhouse for the night.

These girls will most likely not be individually named as they are extremely similar to look at ... unless of course one or more of them worm their way into my heart with their personality, as is so often the case ... so as I have put matching green leg rings on them will, from now on, be known as 'The Green Girls' .... now that'll confuse a few folk  ;-)

Sue xx 

Waste Not Want Not

In a 'waste not want not' moment I took three little potatoes that I found sprouting in the potato bag in the kitchen cupboard over to the polytunnel ....

... and stuck them in a large plant pot full of compost.

I was in a free potato mood as I've just harvested a few meals worth of free potatoes that had grown up in the top raised bed on the hillside.  No matter how careful I think I've been I always seem to leave a few potatoes behind when I dig up a bed, so as we weren't putting anything in this particular top bed for a while, I left them there to do their thing.  Their own thing turned out to be a large colander full of smallish but perfectly formed potatoes  :-)

I was stood at the conservatory door this morning and I thought I saw movement in the chickens food trough.

I did!!

It was this cute little squirrel, he sat there for ages contemplating something before he spotted me zooming in.

Sue xx