As one door closes another one opens ...

It's been quite a year inside and out of this chicken coop. I lost four of my hens this year and when my beautiful old Blodwyn passed away before Christmas I decided that I would start the new year with something different.

With that in mind this will be my last post for this blog.  I have loved every minute of it and want to thank everyone for sharing with me the crazy behaviour of my gorgeous little friends. It has helped me develop my writing skills and inspired me to do other things as well as meeting some wonderful blogging friends.

The good news is that the new brood will be face book stars.

I have just set  up a new page called The Happy Hen.

I thought this would be a fresh new approach and I can update it more often than I have with the blog.

Hope to see you there if you wish to pay us a visit

Thank you and keep on clucking!

Diane

Who done it?

After well over 12 years of keeping hens, today I got my first double yolk! The joy of cracking open an egg only to find two for the price of one is amazing. I never take for granted how lovely it is to get fresh eggs every day and love to find the range of colours and sizes they produce but I never thought I would see a double whammy like that. Double yolk eggs are not uncommon but my previous hens have never managed to produce one in all of those years so it was a magical surprise today.



I have an idea who is responsible for this treasure today and know that I can rule out Morvah the little white one below. The egg in question was brown and she only lays the pure the white eggs and anyway she is too busy escaping the coop half the time. She was already out of the coop before this egg was produced at around 9.00 am this morning.

So who could it be out of this little lot?

 

 

Charity, she was a tiny ex battery hen that used to lay eggs all day, now she doesn't have to and she is growing into a beautiful plump hen. Could she be bothered to go to twice the trouble when there is so much fun to be had in the garden?

 

Tegan and Tamara the twins. They look like butter would not melt in their beaks but did they hatch out a plan between them?

 Lamorna, she is the biggest of the lot but size is not everything. She is a quite a scary bird with very odd blue feet.

So now armed with your evidence can you crack the puzzle who done the double?

New Chicks in the house.



Morvah - the houdini of the Chicken world

 I lost a few hens over the last few months and so only Blodwyn and Charity were left.  I thought it was time they had some friends but it has certainly ruffled some feathers in the Chicken coop.  Morvah the little white hen escaped on the way back and sat on my back seat all the way home.  It was only when I stopped the car that the feathers flew. It was a struggle trying to get her back in the crate to carry her up but in the end I managed to get her in.

                                 Lamorna above is very docile and has already started laying.

Tegan is so pretty

 

                                            And Tamara, her almost twin sister is too!

The problem in the coop is poor Charity, she was a rescue hen and has showed her nasty side, she is furious at these intruders, bless her feathers!

Beautiful old Blodwyn is taking it in her stride, she is the last of the original bunch (The Pied rangers) Now at eight years old, she is a wonderful old lady. 

So these are the new girls, hope they take to being blog stars as all of their antics will be followed now they are inside the chicken coop! 

You can't scratch my back but I will scratch yours!

                     Blodwen obviously has the gift of chicken grooming, perhaps she should open a salon!



I witnessed another fascinating scene the other day with the hens that convinces me that chickens bond with each other or perhaps not in some cases.   

Branwen was happily dust bathing when tiny charity (one of the ex battery hens) came up and tried a bit of mutual grooming.  Branwen was incensed, she made the most terrifying growl that sounded like the biggest dog on the block and pecked her.

Moments later Blodwen her old sister appeared on the scene and went straight into the bug removal process with Branwen rolling over like a soft puppy!

Amazing to watch, it was like an elderly lady going into a hairdresser and being faced with the apprentice stylist when all she wanted was her old sister to give her the weekly beauty treatment.



At last, a cattle grid for chickens!

After months of having the girls follow me down the path every time I leave the garden, I have made my own cattle grid.  It completely threw them as they could see me stepping over it but couldn't follow me.  

You may ask why I don't just shut the gate, well, Charity is so small she slips through so my new invention is doing the job, may just patent the idea, I could make a fortune!

What! Just the one current?

Oh dear, just the one current for Charity to peck at. She looks so focused on that one goal but I think she may enjoy the rest of that hot cross bun anyway.  Easter leftovers are going to a very happy little bunch of hens.

Hope everyone has had a lovely peaceful Easter time.

Love from all of us inside and out of the chicken coop.

x

When is a herb bed not a herb bed? When it just looks like one

At last I finally managed to get the hens out of my herb bed.  I made them a bed that looks like a herb bed except there are no herbs!  Last year they were drawn to it every time I let them have a roam.  They pecked at my parsley, marched right over my marjoram, crushed my coriander and scratched  my sage right out of the ground! I realised this year I had to so something to stop them

Despite  the picture of Charity leaping out of the non-herb bed, they did all stay there for hours. It was great to see them having a dust bath and enjoying the Spring sunshine without inflicting torment on my poor herbs. 

So now at  last they can grow again while the girls enjoy an almost free range of my garden!