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!

The Chickens Are Coming

Good news, finally, I will be collecting my girls on Saturday 14th May 2011.

I received an email from Wendy at the BHWT to let me know what time to collect them and giving me directions to the farm at Sand Hutton, near York. She also included instructions about the container I need to take with me to transport my hens home; this photo is an example of the box I will need, with the appropriate ventilation holes. 

She also included details of the food that these hens will need. Because they have been fed a certain texture of food and have been subject to battery farm conditions they need to be fed ex-battery crumb, rather than normal pellets as this is what they are used to. It also provides the extra nutrients they need to recover and start looking like healthy hens! Pellets can be introduced later on; they should be offered alongside the crumb until the hens get used to the change.

I'm going to pay a visit to my local pet provisions wholesaler this week to look at what feeds and bedding they have available. The chickens will be happy with wood shavings, shredded paper, straw or hay; I will have a look at what's available before deciding.

I have a little problem too... I have no idea of how to handle a chicken! I have done a bit of research on the Internet and in my book (a birthday present from my 5 month old baby girl - thanks Daddy for organising that!) "Raising Chickens for Dummies". The best way of handling chickens is not by holding them upside down by their feet! The best way is to grasp them firmly around their body, holding them under your arm. I hope I'll feel happy handling them, I've never had anything to do with birds of any kind! 

The book is a little advanced for me at the moment too as a very novice chicken keeper. It goes into a lot of detail about rearing chickens from eggs, right through  to the slaughter and butchery process if you wish to raise chickens for meat. It provides lots of tips though, that I hope will prove useful as I become more experienced, or maybe keep more chickens. My Other Half has been trying to find an allotment, and if he does, I am sure it will have chickens, possibly a duck or two and at least one bee hive on it! Read about his bid to find an allotment on his blog by following this link to Beekeeping & Home-brewing.

The British Hen Welfare trust is a registered charity and asks for a donation for each hen (the average is about £4 each). This donation can be gift-aided (if you are a UK taxpayer) so the charity will benefit from an extra 25p for each £1 donated from the government. 

It does make me feel quite excited knowing that somewhere there are 3 hens that are in awful conditions that only have 4 days left before they get to retire, to have grass, space, daylight, care and attention as individuals.

And hopefully we'll have so many eggs I will have to learn to make mayonnaise, meringue and custard :-)

Chickens: An Update

I'm still waiting. I've been waiting for ages now. I received an email from Wendy at the BHWT saying that they are still waiting for a date to rescue the hens, and asking people to be patient. From what I can gather, the farmer notifies them of the slaughter date for the hens that are at the end of their commercial laying life, and then the BHWT take in as many as they can rehome and the rest of them go to be slaughtered - probably for something like dog food and stock, not to be eaten as chicken! Not much of a life really.


I also waited for 3 weeks for my chicken drinker that I ordered from eBay. After contacting the seller on a number of occasions asking why I'd not received it yet I managed to get a full refund from him. I saw the same model in our local garden centre for a lower price so purchased that last weekend. And here it is...

So while I've been waiting for my chooks to arrive I've been thinking about how they are going to change our family life. I'm hoping that the feeling of doing a good deed by giving them a happy retirement and the pleasure of eating fresh eggs will outweigh the getting up literally at the crack of dawn to let them out.


I've also been reading a little bit about the other work that the British Hen Welfare Trust do, and the importance of using free range eggs - shown in the pictures below.


From the BHWT website:

Nearly 60% of caged eggs end up ‘hidden’ in processed food products, such as cakes, pasta, confectionery and ready meals.  Caged eggs are also frequently ‘hidden’ in meals served at restaurants and other eating establishments.

Thanks to the BHWT campaign Hellmans use only free range eggs in their mayonnaise.

You can get involved in stopping the cruel practice of battery farming by following this link and using the templates to write to your local supermarket, MP and food manufacturers. To find your MP and send the template letters by email follow this link to write to them.

Not such a happy life!!! Please think seriously about buying Free Range!

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

Introduction

I’m going to keep chickens. For anyone who knows me and my family, this is in response to my other half keeping bees and blogging about it. I wanted a blog subject, and we want to keep chickens, for eggs, not meat (yet). So they will be mine, and I’m going to record my experiences of them here, along with anything else I think worth sharing, maybe some egg recipes! So in this first post I’ll document my initial findings about chickens and share some interesting facts about them.

Right then some chicken trivia...

• The chicken (Gallus Gallus Domesticus) was first thought to have been domesticated in South East Asia about 10,000 years ago, and from there was introduced to China, India and Persia and then into Europe by 500 BC. They were known by the ancient Egyptians as “the bird that lays everyday”.
• In 2003 there was an estimated world population of 24 billion chickens.
• The male of the species is a Cock or Rooster; a Cockerel is a male under 1year of age. I will not be having a Cock bird as I don’t imagine my neighbours would appreciate the noise. And as we don’t want little chicks, we don’t need our eggs fertilised!
• The female of the species are Hens or Pullets if they are young.
• Chickens may live for 5-10 years, although they lay fewer eggs as they get older. The oldest chicken was 16 years old when she died of heart failure according to the Guinness book of Records.
• Chickens can’t fly very long distances. If you've ever eaten at a Nando’s restaurant and read the wall, you'll know that the longest recorded flight is 13 seconds, barely long enough to get across the road!
• A flock of chickens will have an established “pecking order”, and if an individual is added, or taken away from the flock it can cause disruption.
• Hindu’s believe that a chicken can be a channel for evil spirits at cremation ceremonies in Indonesia, and Jews believe that courtesy towards your spouse should be learned from the Rooster, as he will always invite his ladies to eat first.

I haven’t done a lot of research into different breeds of chicken, or the best age at which to get them, because I came across the British Hen Welfare Trust website, they re-home ex battery hens, rather than selling them on for pet food! Giving three hens a happy retirement feels like a good thing to do. They should be back to full health within a couple of weeks, and should lay quite well, after all I am doing this for fun, not for profit.

Chickens are allegedly very easy to look after, and are not time consuming – they only require about 15 minutes care each day, then a weekly clean of their coop. They are quite cheap to keep too, and have basic needs which must be met, which I will be looking into before I get them:

• Somewhere to live: it must be sheltered, clean (ish) and dry and include a nest box, and an outdoor run. All of this must be fox proof. There are loads of designs and makes to choose from, and can range from the easily affordable to the very expensive.

• Something to eat and drink and feeders and drinkers to put the food and drink in.

• An owner who can spot any illness or medical problems and can provide worming treatments etc.

• Names: My ladies will be Omelette, Custard and Bennie (short for Eggs Benedict).