Clipping the Wings and 300 eggs!

As I mentioned in my last post, Custard our Alpha Chook was discovering the fun of flying! Unfortunately our fence is quite low, and she had been spotted perching on it. Not good when we live close to the road, and next door have got a nutty Dalmatian called Inca. Not that she'd know what to do if she caught a chicken, and I'm sure she'd come off the worst, but we don't want to risk it... So my soon to be Father-in-Law clipped the wings. He's much more confident at handling chickens that me or my other half, and got the job done almost before we knew it. Managed to get a few photos though... And I was Googling again (after the event) and found this interesting site, which explains how to do it, what you need and discusses the ethics of chopping feathers, and I must admit I would prefer not to have clipped wings, however, it is really down to health and safety and for the girls own good. We do have plans to build the girls a big run, rather than having them taking over the whole garden, as my baby is an almost toddler now and I really don't want her playing with chicken poop. Not for a few years at least when she can clean out the coop! ;-) So when they are in the run the fence will be too high, and possibly have a lid on so their feathers can grow back and they'll be able to flap again in there.

Custard showing off her liking for heights, And she can get much higher...

Before...

During...

And After.

And celebrating 300 eggs this week. We have had one loss, where a broken egg was snaffled by Bennie in the coop before we could remove it. Hoping she doesn't make a habit of it. So here is the egg usage graph for eggs laid between the 15th May when they arrived, until 31st August 2011.

Chickens: A photo update

We've been spending a lot of time looking out of the window at our hens, and they are flourishing. In just over 3 weeks they are behaving like real chickens; its like they've never been in battery cages. The following videos and photographs show their eggsploits of the last week or two!

All the ladies have been out free-ranging for at least 8 hours a day since they settled in with us; and have mostly been taking themselves to bed. I say mostly, because one night, Custard (who is having a well deserved rest in this picture, watched over by Omelette) didn't go to bed! We locked her out of the coop by accident, and the poor girl was out all night. Luckily there were no foxes around, but our neighbour saw a big ginger cat in the garden in the middle of the night after hearing lots of loud squawking! There were lots of feathers on the grass in the morning and Custard had a very blood-shot eye and really was not her usual self. She kept flopping down on the grass and I was really worried about her, she was the first one in bed that night. I think she had been attacked by a cat, but been feisty enough to fight it off!







But I had no need to worry; she was the first one out of the coop in the morning, as usual. She had her beak in the food bowl within a few seconds and has been completely back to her normal cheeky self and her eye has healed well. In this video she is trying to sneak into the kitchen. In fact, all of the girls keep trying to come inside the house, they are usually crowding around the door within a minute of it being opened.

Bennie (left) has been laying away from the coop, she made a nest at the side of the shed, which isn't a good place as there is lots of junk around there (you can see pieces of wood with old nails in them), and it is now fenced off. She was really disgruntled about being moved and she tried everything to get back into her special area. And while she was looking for somewhere else to nest she almost laid an egg in the kitchen, we could tell by the tone of clucking that there was one on the way! Thankfully then she found the nest box in the coop and she now regularly lays there! Unlike her sisters who lay next to the perch in the coop. They lay where they're supposed to sleep and sleep where they are supposed to lay.
We know where they sleep now because we open the nest box to do a full beak count every night after Custard's nocturnal adventure. They all cuddle up together in the nest box, with their beaks facing inwards; they look so sweet in there.

 

Bennie eggsplores the garden

From L-R: Custard, Bennie, Omelette

Investigating the new fence that prevents access to the veggie patch.

Bennie having a good scratch in the dirt

Lovely rain water to drink, so much better than the fresh stuff out of the tap...

From back to front: Bennie, Custard and Omelette

Custard being checked over after her "night out".

Omelette enjoying her first dust bath...

And relaxing after the dust bath; she was sat in  there for ages!

Chickens: A Week in the Life of a Happily Retired Hen

Its a week today since I went to collect our new girls. I am amazed at how well they've settled in, they seem to be flourishing; they all have very different "hen-alities" which is like a personality but for chickens! 

They are behaving like real chickens, pecking at the grass and after 5 days they have learnt to go to bed when it gets dark! I think the pecking order has been arranged with minimal fuss, although we did see Custard throwing her weight around a couple of times. We managed to get their coloured leg rings on so we know who is who, only to find out that we don't need them anymore as we can recognise them by their individual features. Custard is the largest girl, the most ginger and has a really big, floppy comb that moves like Michael McIntyres hair when she walks. Omelette has the smallest comb and seems to be the shyest of our ladies, but also the noisiest. Benni seems to be the middle hen, she is confident and keen to explore and it looks like she's friendly with the other two.

On Friday we let them "free-range" in the garden for a while for the first time, and this is their story...

Custard and Benni eggsperience their first taste of freedom outside of the chicken run.  At this time Omelette was in the coop making an eggstremely loud screeching noise. I'm not sure if she was warning us off, or trying to convince the other girls not to go out.

Getting braver...

"Come on Omelette, its not that bad out here"

Omelette, finally braving the outside world.

Omelette exploring the vegetable patch; after walking through the onions, she forced her way through the potato plants pretending to be a pheasant running through the undergrowth.

Being "moved along" away from the veggies by her new Daddy! Notice how they are both walking in step!

Custard gets to know Daddy a bit better while she has her leg ring fitted.

Custard and Benni having a stroll together around the garden. They were  inseparable on this first trip out.

Benni in blue and Custard in yellow. Wonder what they were talking about!

Custard checking out the perimeter! We wondered if they could be plotting a Chicken Run-esque escape attempt...

Today we got up extra early to let them out and clean the coop, before our other little girl woke up! So free ranging again, and Custard did in fact manage to escape into our neighbours garden through a tiny gap in the fence, which has now been fixed! Luckily, Inca, their frisky Dalmatian was not up and out! Although I'm sure Custard would have fended her off. She gave us a display of feistiness earlier when a blackbird landed in the garden. I would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of the fierce, flapping charge that she did across the full width of the garden!

And now the Week in Eggs....

• Sunday           3
• Monday         3
• Tuesday         3
• Wednesday    2
• Thursday        2
• Friday            3
• Saturday        2 (so far...)

Grand Total = 18!!!

We've eaten 4, and sold 5, and made £1.50, which will go towards their food and bedding...

Think we are going to enjoy looking after these girlies :-)

C:Day - The Chickens Have Landed!

We have chickens!!

Yesterday was C-Day. I drove to the lovely little village of Sand Hutton about 7 miles North East of York, past the asparagus farm and the pig field to a massive barn full of 600 ex-battery hens looking for new homes. I registered in the farm shop and bought a 20kg bag of feed ready for my new girls. I met Wendy from BHWT, who I'd been emailing about the hens over the past couple of months, she was very passionate about re-homing chickens. I donated £15 for my three, and was told about the Facebook page that has loads of hen fanatics sharing their stories, and providing advice for the novices like me! We walked around to the barn, and I was expecting lots of bald, sad looking chickens, but was surprised to see a mass of feathers, and hear loud happy-sounding clucks! I handed over my cardboard box and had it returned to me full of chickens!

When I got them home I (with the help and support of my other half) managed to get them into their new home. I was really nervous when picking them up, as I don't think I was firm enough or had a good enough grip around the wing! There was lots of flapping! But they soon settled into their house, and I even saw one of them on the perch; which they have never seen before and aren't normally strong enough to grip on to one. It took about 6 hours for them to be brave enough to come outside into their run. We put some food and water into the coop, because in the farm they don't have to venture very far to reach anything! We also had the food and water containers outside, so they could get used to seeing them there and could help themselves when they were ready to explore. When it was dark we locked them into the coop so they were safe from foxes.

 And this morning there were 3 eggs!! There was one on the floor next to the door, one in the nest box, and one that my other half found that was underneath the food container that had been kicked over at some point during the night. We cooked one this afternoon to try it; I have never tasted an egg just hours fresh and I was amazed at how "eggy" it was. It's almost like supermarket eggs lose flavour for each day they sit on the shelves.

A lot of time today has been spent looking out of the window and watching the girls settling in. Its best not to handle them too much until they've got used to their surroundings. They have been braving the outside, and have all been spotted using the drinker, and feeder. I've seen them all pecking the ground for bugs and grass and getting used to the ramp up into the house. They seem to be learning to be "real chickens" fairly quickly! We've managed to take a few pictures of them, but didn't want to disturb them too much yet! Its difficult to know which is which so we have ordered some coloured leg bands from eBay, which we will use to distinguish the girls from each other.

As it got dark this evening, one of the girls was still out so we had to get her in bed for the night. It turns out that she didn't want to go, and it took a while to persuade her to go in. A few minutes later we looked out of the window and the door of the coop (having not been bolted quite right) was open and we had an escapee! It was the same girl, and she was put back to bed shortly afterwards, and all doors were checked carefully after that!

I'm looking forward to another egg hunt in the morning!

Building the Chicken Coop

Chickens do need somewhere to live; their house arrived yesterday.

So after an eggsellent(!) breakfast of boiled eggs and soldiers, we started to unpack the box.

We made a mess of the kitchen...

And tried to make sense of the very clear, very detailed instructions...

  

We started off by making the nest box, and then the main body of the coop.

By the time we had built the run and attached it to the house it was dark.

The feeder that I ordered has arrived too.

And now for the really good news...

I had a phone call from Wendy at the British Hen Welfare Trust, who said that she was expecting chickens by the end of the month and I'm now on the waiting list. I have to travel to York to pick up my hens, and need a large cardboard box with air holes to transport them home in. I need to get on with researching how best to look after these chooks, as they could be with me within the next 3 weeks!

Chickens Need Somewhere To Live

Well as the title says, chickens do in fact need somewhere to live. And it turns out that I will be the proud owner of a brand new chicken coop and run, courtesy of my other half. I'm having my birthday present early this year!

I did quite a bit of research online about different designs of coop, and decided to go for a ready prepared, flat-pack model, rather than the DIY option; I have little skill (or motivation) with saws and hammers!

After looking at a number of different websites, I found this on ebay, for £100 including delivery. I settled on this one because its a good price and it will look good in our back garden. It has a number of special features that are worth mentioning:

• Fox proof locks
• Adjustable roof vent to keep the chickens cool in Summer
• 2 roosting bars
• Slide-out metal floor for ease of cleaning
• Large door (front and back) and ramp for ease of access for the birds
• Nest box can be situated on either side of the house

This has now been dispatched and should be with me within the next 2-3 days, then we can have all the fun of assembling it. I shall be enlisting the help of my other half; we will have to time the build to coincide with my little girls nap! I will post better pictures of it then, in situ.

Chickens also need something to eat and to drink, and something to eat and drink from. I've not ordered them yet, but I have chosen a galvanised steel feeder, that has fluted edges that will stop food being scratched out and wasted, and a rain shield to stop the food from getting wet. The drinker will be plastic and will hold 1.5l of water.

So, the next thing I need are the chickens themselves. I have registered with the British Hen Welfare Trust, and have sent an email to the nearest co-ordinator to me, who is based in York (about 40 minutes drive away) asking what I need to do to get my chickens. There was a note on their Website that said "Hens are available soon (in this area)". My chicken project is moving along faster than I imagined it would. I think I will have my chickens well before my other half gets his bees!

The other things I need to learn about now are:

Keeping chickens healthy

Chicken food

About laying eggs

Cooking eggs