Three wishes!

I thought today how un-complicated Christmas must be for animals - well that is for the ones that are loved and cared for.

I put up three little stockings tonight for my wonderful little hens and loved the expression on Blodwyns face. I wondered what she would wish for tonight along with her camera shy sisters - Braith and Bethan?

They are three very different characters, although some people may think they look similar they are not.

That is the wonderful thing about chickens, they do have the most individual and personal characters.

Can't wait to see what turns up in those little stockings tomorrow!

Merry Christmas to everyone from Inside the Chicken Coop!
xx

Now that's better!

I have been so worried about my poor old girls during this freezing weather.
Yet they started to lay again and now look very healthy for old hens living through extreme weather conditions. They love their comfort and so I continue to pander to their needs.

I have so far fitted three shower curtains to protect their coop from the snow and ice.

I put the curtains onto a proper curtain wire so when it is sunny I can draw it back to allow the maximum amount of sunshine into the chicken coop and when the weather gets nasty I can shut them in and keep them cosy.

Tonight I took them a little bread and warm skimmed milk (they do like to watch their figures) they were so appreciative.

Blodwyn tucked in first as usual. The milk was dripping from her beak! I think if she were human she would be like the 'Nigella Lawson' of the chicken world - Beautiful and loving her food!)

Hope all our animals stay safe and warm in this weather.

Was it wrong of me to laugh?

I had an unexpected half day of work today so wanted to make full use of the extra time.

As usual I divide the time between being with my animals and my writing, so I was so pleased that I managed to let the girls out for a while to stretch their wings. Although they love their cozy coop which is safe while I am work, it's great to see them pottering around the garden while there is some daylight and today they welcomed the few hours outside of the chicken coop.

When they have a bit of freedom they always do the funky chicken meets 'Eddy the Eagle Edwards' act but today they did a new routine that would not go a miss in strictly come dancing.(well in some cases anyway!)

The ground was very wet and slippy. As they emerged one by one from the coop, they did their own star turn by flapping their wings in delight, running as fast as they could - then doing a mud slide in most un-dignified manner.

I did notice that each of them did not learn from the previous one's mistakes and just went for it anyway, all falling in the same spot, poor things! Was it wrong of me to laugh?

Spooks in the Coop

Bobbing for apples.


Alas, poor Yorick.



Forget it Casper, you don't scare me!



Pumpkin Head


Igor the feathered claw


Even Witches have pets!

Happy Samhain to everyone!

Harvest Hiccups

Oh fab! Windfall apples, full of naughty goodness. Just look at that rotten one, it's full of fermenting tasty bits.



Yum, I may have to sample one of these as well.



Or perhaps two! Yummy, I can taste the natural sugar and it's making me so happy! Weeeeeeh!



Oh dear! I feel soooo wob-errr-ly - Hic!



Ohhh my head hurts-hic! Ohhhhhhh, noooooo, I feelz bad! Hicc!



Beddddz I need my bed, hehehe!! Hic! Hahah Hic! Oh nooo I'm going to throw up that worm I ate earlier. Sl-eeep, I need sl-eeep.


Several hours later and more than forty winks



Oh that's better, never again! Hmm, well perhaps not until next year. Anyway, I am taking the meaning of harvest quite literally. I shall reap, gather and eat! In moderation of course.

And then there were three

Today was supposed to be a very lucky day due to the way the calender has fallen as it is 10/10/10. Unfortunately for me one of my hens died today. I felt so miserable for a couple of hours and I certainly didn't feel lucky. However, on reflection and in the company of the three gorgeous girls that are left, I think I am very lucky. I am lucky to have these wonderful little companions that share my life and put up with my mad behaviour inside their chicken coop.

A comment that Simon Whaley made on my other blog Working2Write, made me see that if I had never kept chickens, I would never of had my little book published.

I had just buried Branwen and was sat on the bench balling my eyes out when Blodwyn (my favourite) jumped up beside me. It was like when a dog can tell you are upset. They seem to sense the change and whatever their intentions are, it usually works, as it did for me. We sat in the sunshine looking out for a while, she was so close I could hardly take the picture below, but it was precious to me. Yes, today I do feel lucky!

World Animal Day

It's World Animal Day today and a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the relationship we have with our beautiful animals all over the world.

This fantastic organisation also supports decent conditions for all animals to live in.

Check out the World Animal Day website at www.worldanimalday.org.uk/

My hens are enjoying a sunny coop today but yesterday when it rained constantly, I went out and bought two very cheap shower curtains to cover the exposed areas. It rained so hard that the roof had started to leak and they looked very miserable, but after a while they were soon snuggling down in the straw and enjoying some boiled rice!

Whether you keep animals or not, it's great day to think about all the wonderful and amazing animals that share our planet.

Friends

I went to Harlech over the weekend and the owners of the guest house keep these lovely little Bantams which I had to photograph.

As I approached the coop I thought I was going mad when I could see a beautiful border collie staring out from what looked like the inside of the coop. Apparently she goes around the back of the pen and sits with them most of the day with no agression or wanting to harm them. If she wanted to hurt them she could easily jump inside the open coop where this one is standing, yet she goes every day to spend time with them.

Her owners said she was not the brightest of collies, who are usually known for their high intelligence, yet I think she shows us humans that it is possible to make friends in the most unlikey situations - just like in the classic novel and film 'Charlotte's Web' where a pig be-freinds a spider!

Auto-tuned

"Excuse me ladies, I wondered how you feel about the Auto-Tune machine on X Factor?"



"Well, we think it's cool, but then we can't sing."



"I think it's appalling, I'm a serious artist, I certainly do not need or desire a machine to meddle with my voice."



"I think it's shocking too."



"I mean to say, it's not like we need any tricks to get us to perform well!"

A fairy egg?

I know there will be a very clear and logical explanation as to why one of my girls has laid the smallest egg I have ever seen from a hen, which is no bigger than a ten pence piece. However, I like to think they laid this one with a very special customer group in mind!

Touch Typists

Who needs Paul the Octopus when you have chickens that can type?

The girls were most impressive with their keyboard skills when I gave them a typing test. They are much more flexible with their keyboard techniques than us humans and use whatever method they are comfortable with to hit the keys. I reckon they reached at least 90 wpm with a little encouragement from a very special keyboard that would not be to everyone's taste!

The amazing thing was that they even seemed to be happy if they were reading it up-side-down! How clever is that?

I wondered that as they are much more intelligent and far quicker typists than myself, I may get them working on my next novel!




Or maybe, they will want to write their own 'chick lit' best seller. They would certainly have enough material to work with inside and out of the chicken coop.

The Versatile Blogger Award

I was delighted to receive the above award from Klahanie, one of my fellow bloggers who was the initial and very deserving recipient of the 'Versatile Blogger Award'.

I also said that I hoped it wouldn't go to the girls heads, but looks like I'm too late as Braith seems to have lost hers all together!

Calling all chickens

'At last! Something great on telly for us to watch!'



'Why? What's on the box? Is it Chicken Run again?'



'No, it's a cool programme about the private life of us chickens! It's on BBC2 at eight o'clock tonight.'



'Oh dear! I'm not sure I like the idea of that! My life and my space is very private thank you very much, I may not choose to share it with the nation!'



'And mine too! I like to take my dust bath in private! Goodness me is nothing sacred?'



'Come on girls, those humans still need to learn a few things about what goes on inside the chicken coop! We are amazing creatures and our ancestors have been around for so much longer they have.'



'Hopefully they will have have done lots of research and read a few good books along the way before they have an idea of what we are about!

Great Brit-Hens do us proud

It's been a disappointing few weeks with all our sporting heroes crashing out of the football or tennis, leaving England and the whole of Great Britain deflated.

However, our little hens, all over Great Britain have the most amazing talent and we should be proud of them.

My girls, along with millions of other little hens, score nearly every day when they deliver a fantastic food source for us humans to eat - just by laying one of their precious eggs!

They don't get paid millions of pounds for their talent, they just ask to be treated well and to be given a good standard of living.

I often feel like I am finding something very special when I open the nest box to discover yet another one of their little treasures nestling in the straw.

The sporting tournaments will come again for those to show off their sporting prowess , but for once in a while it's a good thing to acknowledge the simple yet amazing achievement of our great little Brit-hens!!

The Cat and Chicken

The Cat and Chicken - This could be the name of a pub!
No post - I just thought it was a cute photo.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Thousands of people flocked to Stonehenge over the last few days in order to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

Luckily the alternative stone circle in the Shropshire countryside was a lot more tranquil, but equally as magical as the girls soon discovered! Hope it get's them laying more eggs!

Have a great Summer Solstice everyone, how ever you choose to spend the longest day!

If at first you don't succeed

Try again, but a bit harder!

It's party time!

Hey look, our new strip has arrived!



OMG, my bum is going to look so big in that!



Never mind about that! Mr Capello is about to choose his team! We could still be in there girls! Let's get some practice in. We could fly over there before kick off!



Errhh, what do we do now?



Dunno, are we supposed to kick it?



Yeah - right into the back of the net - a bit like that!



It's so distracting though, having all these worms and grubs to dig up.



Ok girls, I agree, shall we leave it to the professionals? Get the telly on and let's get the party started!



Good luck England! Your fans are waiting!!