The Hen Whisperer

There are all sorts of tee-shirts 'out there' featuring cats, dogs and horses but I've been unable to find one to express my love and admiration for chickens! You would think there would be plenty with the current interest in home chicken keeping. So I decided to design one myself. I found a site which gives you a HUGE number of cartoon pictures to choose from, and the facility to put text wherever you wish, and the result is shown above.

The chickens have all gathered around for a nosey! I think they like it too.

Fruit thieves!

The case of the disappearing blackcurrants.

Hmm. Nearly ripe blackcurrants. Nearly is good enough for Topaz!

Good things are worth sharing - Garnet comes over for a quick peck. And to think 'She' thought this miserable netting would keep us off them!

Back to home base and Topaz and Amber think you can't beat a good scrat around in a bucket of dirt!

Little and Large

Yesterday's offerings were 2 normal sized eggs and these two! The paler one on the left is obviously a double yolker. We have one of these about every 10 days. They are not from the same chicken because we once had two on the same day. On the right is the titchiest little egg - more like a quail's than a chicken's egg. When we get around to eating them it will be interesting to see if it has a yolk or is just a 'wind egg'. I also find it interesting that it has much more colour than our usual eggs and has even darker freckles. I assume this means that there is a finite amount of colour available per egg and it gets used up - stretched more thinly for a paler, larger than usual egg and spread a bit thicker for a smaller egg.

Edit - we had the eggs this morning (18/06/09). Sure enough, the big one (100g) was a double yolker and the tiny one (under 30g) was 'all white' - a wind egg!

Corn time!

Amber is wondering what I'm doing on my knees in the chicken run! She knows Himself has the corn tin - what on earth have I got - and most importantly - can you eat it?


Boss Hen Topaz is giving voice - come on, get on with it! Have you brought corn or not? If not, stop wasting our sun-bathing time!

THAT'S more like it!

Follow those trousers!

After a good long scratching session on Chicken Field the girls follow behind (hoping for meal worms no doubt!) back into their run. If there's any suspicion that someone else might be getting something you're not you break into a little gallop - and boy can a chicken run fast! They never seem disappointed to be back in the home run - everyone gets on with the usual things - dust bath, scratching, having a rest under the house in the shade.

Troublesome weeds?

Process them through a chicken!

My neighbour's allotment neighbour (still with me?) is ill at the moment so his friends are rallying round and keeping his plot in good nick. Neighbour returned with a barrow load of weeds and the chickens are delighted to help!

It's mainly chickweed, not called that for nothing! I sifted out the bits of 'volunteer' potato haulm, and bindweed and such, and the remaining weeds are ripped across several times as I don't want any stuck crop problems. As you can see it's 'up-tails all' until the green food is cleared.

Digging!

"Do you think we can dig up this damson tree?"

I want HER slug!

A jolly interlude in Chicken Field between the showers on Monday.