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!

Hot mash and a White Christmas

This is the view early this morning, taken from the shed doorway, about half way down the garden. There is frozen snow on the chicken-run weldmesh and inside the run, it's quite dark as there's about 2" of snow on the clear corrugated roofing. However, snow is a good insulator!

Inside the run, there's much less snow - only the fine scattering that blew in last night. After collecting the eggs, changing the water (which had an inch of ice on) and cleaning out the house, I returned with a bowl of hot mash made from layers' pellets, a few raisins, some tinned sweetcorn, a scattering of mealworms and a sprinkling of poultry spice. This has become a regular thing these very cold mornings to the extent that they now look disparagingly upon the cabbage and make little whinging, moaning noises till the good stuff turns up! We'll have to wean them off that when the weather warms up - they'll just have to whinge and moan!

Chicken SAD?

Do chickens suffer from Seasonally Affected Disorder? I think one of mine might have.

Ruby spent Friday morning looking very sorry for herself with the characteristic short neck and dumped up bottom of a poorly chicken. In the past both Amber and Topaz have been like this when they had a soft egg in the pipeline but this wasn't the case here. She also had a mucky bottom so I decided to bring her indoors and bathe her bottom feathers and dry them gently with a hair drier. (Himself told me sternly not to attempt to kiss it better!) While this process was going on I discovered that her droppings came with an accompanying puddle of water. This is a sign that a chicken isn't eating enough. If she felt ill she no doubt wouldn't eat - how to break the cycle?


Once she was cleaned up and offered water and a few meal worms and some layers' pellets she bucked up quite a lot. She initially stood on one spot but after half an hour or so began exploring and pecking bits of meal worm off the floor. Just before I was about to give the others their 'tea' - mixed grit, mixed corn and a few mealworms, I brought her some of the mixed corn. She really began to show interest. Then I had an inspiration.



The chickens are anyone's for a few grains of tinned sweetcorn, so I opened a can and gave her several handfuls. By this time she was showing considerable enthusiasm again. I think the warmth, hand-feeding and TLC had done her good. When I put her back in with the others she joined in the scrabble for the evening corn, though she was first to give up and amble off.

By Saturday, she was trotting around just like old times. I brought her in again just before the tea-time feed to ensure she had her own and didn't get shoved out - she is the most diffident of the lot - and she ate her own then joined in again with everyone else's. The poo she did was back to normal - no watery stuff.

For the last couple of days I've been making them a sort of hot mash about mid-day. The first day I used porridge oats but today I used layers' pellets with added Poultry Spice, a few drops of cod liver oil and a sprinkling of sweetcorn and meal worms. They fell on it and cleaned the lot up. The pellet feeder was full but the idea of the warm mash with a few scattered treats tempted them more.

New chippings

The chickens are exploring the new run surface. It's ginger - they are well camouflaged!


Luckily we were around when a tree 4 doors up the road had to be lopped because its upper branches were interfering with the telephone line. The contractor sawed the big branches off and fed them into an industrial chipper. He was happy to dump half his load for the use of the village. We filled a huge sack which had come with a ton of gravel. We also took several barrow loads up to an elderly neighbour to mulch her flower beds. The rest will mulch the village flower beds.

The chickens had their run cleaned out this morning with their old chippings going to mulch our front garden (the woodland bit).

I wanted to take a picture of them rummaging around in the new chippings. We know there were small caterpillars and bugs because we saw some, but they have evidently found much to delight them. Can't seem to catch them with their heads up at the moment!

We have almost half a bag of chippings left too. They are covered over and weighed down because more gales are forecast this afternoon.

Chicken fun!

Autumn clear-up in the vegetable garden.

The chickens were allowed out this afternoon onto the back garden vegetable plot. They raked amongst the annual weeds and the remains of the tomatoes and the sweetcorn and courgette stalks. Then The Man started digging and behold! Worms!

The Man had to hang back a bit to avoid kebabbing a chicken. The Woman took over to give the plot a rough winter digging and pounds of worms were consumed by the feathered ones.

Eventually the intrepid Amber wandered off into the shrubs for a fossick around. She stayed under there grubbing about for 10 minutes or so, until the lure of the worm bonanza brought her back. This was such a successful expedition it might be repeated, but not too often. When they come out of the run now they trot over to their fenced off bit of grass. I don't want them to assume the veg plot is permanently theirs too!