Chilly chickens

Why, when I've just given them a lovely bowl of fresh water, another of hot mash and filled up their feeding pot, do they eat snow?

Because their brains don't take up much room maybe?

You know the way things shrink in the cold? (Yes you do!) This was the offering of our Garnet who usually lays a huge long torpedo shaped dark egg. This minute offering had nothing in but a membrane with a tiny smear of yolk.

They are still laying sporadically. It's their second winter as layers and we usually get 2 a day, sometimes 3 though we have one day without an egg at all. Maybe we should think of adding a couple of PoLs to the flock next spring?

Winter digging

Who kicked the soil off the vegetable bed and onto the path?

'Ahem. A naughty rooster did it and ran away!'

Ohh, Topaz loves gravel! It must be full of little crawly things to eat because she can't see a gravel path without wanting to scratch it all up. I thought my greenhouse windows had had it - the greenhouse is surrounded on 2 sides by gravel which flew in the air and cracked ominously as the chickens hurled it against the glass.

After the chickens and I had dug over the empty bed (and they had stuffed their crops with wiggly things) I dug out one of my compost bins and this lovely crumbly stuff is the result of a mixture of hemp bedding, chicken poo and vegetable peelings. Wonderful stuff! Thank you, ladies!

Ranging on the meadow

Ruby and Amber take a walk around the wildflower meadow which has been shorn a couple of times. They have a tendency to follow trousers around because you can often cadge something to eat!

Himself was relaxing with the remains of a cuppa when Ruby decided to investigate.

Chickens apparently like tea!

Their 'job' for the day was to scratch up the thatch of moss that has formed in amongst the grasses and wild flowers. Amber (paler in colour) and Topaz however, thought there were better pickings in the borders. They might be right. Amber came up with a huge slug and was duly chased around the grass with it till she managed to get it down her neck. It took her longer to wipe her beak clean from the slug 'glue' than it did to demolish the morsel. You can just see her little bald bum - she's moulting at the moment.

Digging!

This morning I decided to clear the rather weedy area where the pea wigwams had been. The chickens love garden clearance!

Amber wandered onto the border by the veg plot where there's a fair bit of couch grass to be removed.

A few minutes later, Ruby (with the curly tail) and Topaz helped to finish the job!) Himself would like to make a raised bed here and try growing a melon next year. It's a sheltered spot by the fence and as long as the chickens don't get in there while it's growing, it just might work.

Topaz had a good system. As I was digging she 'followed the plough' and got rather more worms than the others. Champion worm-bane is Ruby though, who manages, by tossing them till they are right way round, to swallow huge ones that the others won't tackle.

Amber seems to be coming out of her longest broody period to date - nearly a fortnight. Unfortunately we went away in the middle of this time so my regime of shutting the house up in the day had to be foregone - we only had one visit a day to feed, clean out and change the water. Since our return on Thursday she's gradually begun to take more interest in food and become less aggressive to the sisterhood. The appearance of the fourth egg will announce that she's totally back to normal.

Foraging

The grass has grown back in places on Chicken Field and fortunately for them (not for us!) the little area they play in has a blackcurrant bush - just behind the chair, and they can hardly wait for the fruits to start turning colour before they pinch them. It matters less now that we have the allotment which had 4 bushes, all un-chickened.

They love to rake around under the rose bush too, as it's shaded during the hottest part of the day. Topaz is under the Tayberry which is outside their little area but the branches reach across. They are surprisingly athletic when they want a tayberry!

Broody hen!

Amber Chicken has had to be turfed out of the nest box the last 3 days.  She is pictured sitting on nothing!  She will happily sit on everyone else's eggs, or as here, on no eggs at all and the rest have to lay on the floor of the house.  I've taken to turfing her off, which she really doesn't like, but otherwise she doesn't eat or drink.  I don't want her to lose condition and I have absolutely no intention of raising chicks so I have to be brutal.  She distracts easily with a few treats and after half an hour of ruffling her feathers up and swearing at me, she goes back to her normal sunny self.

A funny thing, your average chicken!

The Joy of Dirt

How to keep your feathers in good fettle! It's surprising how quickly they fluff up again - and how clean they look afterwards!

I've finished my grass. Can I have yours?

Grubby chickens!

How they love a good flap in the dirt! You can see the remains of another wallow hole by the damson tree, and there's yet another closer to the camera. Their lovely under-feathers are coated in soil and look grey and gritty instead of white and fluffy. Still, they did exactly the same yesterday, accompanied by that noise half way between a cat's purr and a frog's croak, that seems to indicate chicken bliss! They shake their feathers until the grit shakes out and they become lovely and pristine again. I'd rather have a bath!

A chicken's life!

Grass? What grass? Last year this area was the rank and overgrow part of the mini-meadow. It didn't take the chickens long to trash it! Considering that it has been 'resting' for a couple or three months, it still looks devastated. They don't seem to mind though. It's another scratching experience.

After a good rummage through the dirt and gravel, the chickens went back to their run for a good stoke up with pellets. Then it seemed like a good idea to have a lie down and digest them! Three managed to get into the fish box which is sunk down so the rim is just above chippings-level. The other is snuggled up close by. I've got to get the tea ready now. They have staff!

Out on Chicken Field

After the horrible winter when snow filled their little patch or rain sluiced off the garden room to make a drip trench like a small river, the ground was in good fettle for a rummage yesterday. The chickens spent a couple of hours fossicking amongst the pebbles and beaking up the bits of grass (not many!) while I gave the house a really good do out.

Ruby, having a good fluff up after a big scratching session. The fact that the chickens hadn't been on there for a while meant that there were plenty of wiggly things to eat.

New perch. Can you smell fish?

Rooftops and caulis

Upwardly mobile chicken!

Amber and Garnet are the intrepid mountaineers of the bunch, Amber being the keenest to get a good view! Just before I took this picture I was walking back from the greenhouse and she was desperate to see what I was doing. She flew up and scrambled to the pointy top of Beak House to eyeball me.

She likes to keep track of me in case I have a handful of weeds she can help me with. I hadn't, on this occasion, as I was coming back from noting the Max/Min temperatures.

In the chickens' opinion, people leave the best bit of a cauliflower. Our elderly neighbours are cauli addicts and bring the outer shell for the girls' delight and delectation.

Another snow fall

After a night when the temperature went down to -4.4 degrees, I decided another hot mash was in order. We had a snow fall overnight and there was a thick ice-sheet over the chickens' water. Hot Mash time is the nearest I've seen to squabbling with this little flock. They all jump on the dish at once and although there's room for them all around the dish, there's usually one who lands on another and they settle themselves with a little squawk of protest!

Notice that the greens, usually fallen on with relish, now hold no interest at all!

We're ok!

At 3.15 the light is fading and the snow is falling fast but our chicken-run roof is keeping the worst at bay. We still like eating snow though - when it comes in on someone's shoes!