Meanwhile back at the barn

I'll admit I haven't been paying a lot of attention to what's going on outside lately. Almost forgotten we have chickens sometimes. And as for plants. Well there's only so much time in the day.

However, the horses are back and the neighbours are away so opening and shutting the chicken house now involves navigating your way past two large friendly stallions. This is not something I am used to. Nor Tom. Nor indeed the chickens who emerged one morning saying "where the hell have you been, why have we been cooped up so long," and then caught sight of long legs in front of the house and promptly remembered something that urgently needing doing back inside the hen house. I think they are coming to some kind of uneasy relationship and Tom has overcome any horse phobia he may have had and this week is in charge of the chickens. In fact he said it's rather better to go out there himself than with me squawking whenever a horse comes up behind me. So much for country living!

The battle for supremacy was won

You've seen it on film many times before. Alan Ladd against Jack Palance in Shane. Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone fighting it out on the stairs in Robin Hood. David against Goliath. Well okay the chicken wasn't actually that big. And I was aiming to capture her alive.

Sam the errant chicken has been broody in a hedge somewhere and has taken to sleeping al fresco. Having a chicken lay her eggs where I can't find them, and leave herself vulnerable to foxes overnight, while expecting me to feed her is a bit much. So clearly something had to be done.

My tactic today was to make sure all the other chickens were stuck in the run. Suzanne (my chicken expert) suggested that Sam the lone Maran might be tempted back to the hen house by the others. So I wandered around the field and than practically stepped on her. Top marks for observation there, Sherlock. Yesterday the field had been "topped off" and Sam's nest was exposed. In fact it was almost mown. There she was right on the edge of a thistle bed sitting on around 8 eggs. She left sharpish and I collected the eggs which all failed the float test and have therefore been disposed of.

Not much later I managed to get her to come to the house for some food and then when she wasn't looking, grabbed her and shoved her in the back entrance of the house. This was harder than it sounds, involved much lurking and really I could have done with a net. But eventually I won. So now we have seven chickens in the run. Seven cross chickens. And I will admit to feeling a little guilty about six of them as they have been behaving themselves. But if Sam is going to learn to go to bed in safety and lay her eggs where I can get them then they've all got to suffer for a bit.

More lone ranger than free ranger

The prodigal daughter/chicken returns.

I thought I was seeing double today but no, there are two Marans again. Bossy difficult Maran also known as Sam is back, after an absence of two weeks. So not in a fox but rather probably broody and sitting on a clutch of hedge-laid and very well hidden unfertilised eggs. As she's a chicken, she isn't saying where she's been, who with or what she's been up to - rather like a teenager.

One of our chickens is missing

It's either Sam or Ella, so a Maran and the bossy one. Head of the flock. And producer of the loveliest dark brown eggs. Also rather bad-tempered. She vanished some time on either Thursday or Friday and there is not a trace. Not even a satisfied and plump looking fox to give us a clue as to her fate. We do think a fox got her. We are being philosophical. The chickens have been a bit lost without her, so I'm wondering who will get promotion.

Unimpressed chickens

We have new neighbours. The field next to the barn now has two beautiful horses in it. Which means that the gates are shut and the chickens' fence is complete enough to keep the horses out of their area. The girls and I love looking at the horses. The chickens are much less enthusiastic. They do NOT want to go anywhere near that field. Which is tricky for the Marans in particular who are too large and fat to fly in any particularly efficient and guaranteed AtoB fashion, and who can't squeeze under the fence. So they have to go through the field. The others are slightly more mobile, but very jumpy. I just went out to give them some leftovers and the horses thought they'd wander over to say hello. Chickens couldn't decide between greed and fright. I am hopeful that this will all settle down and that the hens will get to bed. One Maran has sneaked in already. She was taking no chances at all and bolted for the bedroom. The other was still stuck in my garden trying to find a way through.

Off now to tuck them up. Which involves me climbing a fence and walking through a very overgrown and nettley field. And they think they've got problems. (Oh, that's not because I'm scared of the horses - it's just the only way into the chicken patch right now for someone my size which is much much larger than a Maran.)

The bird man of Llanfair

Rob has a better way with the chickens than I do!

Chickens various

Sunday's collection featured these eggs. Check out the one on the left - enormous! Not sure who laid it, though a Maran looks most likely.


Meanwhile, Mrs Difficult Maran has gone "hedge" again (phrase courtesy of E). And a different hedge. Fortunately I caught her looking shifty near our fence earlier in the day, and then slightly later found the egg. A much more convenient spot so I'm hoping she'll stick at it this time. I still suspect a Black Rock of going hedge but she (and who knows which) is being a lot craftier and more discreet so I have no idea which chicken to watch, when or where.

And finally, here are Mavis, Gladys and Ethel, the Black Rocks, having a fine old time at the bottom of a conifer in my garden.

and another thing (egg related)

Oh and if anyone wants to quibble that my willpower failed or that I am hardly doing a good job on the egg-in-the-nesting-box-training regime. Well yes. But it was just killing me to know that those eggs were somewhere and I might never find out where until they exploded or something.

Eggs - I found them!

Today we tried slightly different tactics. I was watching them and one Maran was pacing up and down in the run, looking particularly agitated about being stuck inside. So we let them out, and then the girls and I (that's human girls) stood and watched and after a few minutes, said Maran headed off to the hedge at the top of the field and snuck under the fence. I have looked and looked in this hedge but it is very overgrown and fenced off on one side with a wall on the other. Not exactly accessible. Fortunately she chose a spot close to the fence though very overgrown with thistles, nettles and brambles.

At this point we left her to it. Later however when she was still sitting there hours later [is that being broody?], we went over and after a bit of cutting back of the undergrowth, she got up and revealed 18 eggs. I've left two but collected the rest and conducted the float test.



The eggs all passed - eggs stay fresh for ages don't they? I am hoping that she is still going to hang out there because I can reach the eggs and I know where it is. The only disappointment was that I'm not sure if anyone else is hedge-laying - I suspect so, but I can't work out where. Still I think I've got the main culprit. Four chickens have laid in the house so far today.

Now what the hell do I do with all these eggs???

A battle of wills

Me against the chickens (and I'm a bit of a pushover). So far they have laid 6 eggs, 5 eggs and today 4 eggs in the house. I suspect some eggs are still going awol and I still have no idea where. I've been letting them out in the early afternoon and I'm not sure this is late enough. They are cross about it but as they're chickens this doesn't take the form of much more than a lot of irate clucking and treading on each other inside the run. I think I'm not such a pushover that I can't take this kind of pressure. So tomorrow they will be shut in until at least 4pm. They need to know who's boss.

Those darn chickens

I cannot work out where they are laying their eggs. And now it's more than just one Maran. Egg collection rates are down and I just know that there is a cache somewhere but I have hunted and hunted and so far no joy. So tomorrow I am not going to let them out of the run until after 1 pm. This will probably cause much discord in chicken household but that's their own stupid fault. I can't be expected to stand in a field observing chickens all day. And I can't afford GPS tags for each chicken no matter how amusing Tom might find this idea. He also suggested a web cam - which I suppose would be harnessing the power of the web and all you lot out there to watch the damn birds for me. Another amusing but clearly unworkable idea. I don't think he's taking this problem seriously somehow...

On behalf of Sam, Ella, Emily, Rose, Mavis, Gladys and Ethel

I'd like to thank Mrs Almost Average over at the Rubbish Diet who has honoured me along with some other excellent sites with a Hen Party Award for inspiring her to keep chickens. I really don't deserve it. And Sam or Ella doesn't either because she is still laying in a mystery spot somewhere on these acres and I can't find it. (The fact that I can't actually tell the difference between my chickens is another sign I don't deserve the award - yes I've named them but no real idea which is which.)

And while I'm on the subject of The Rubbish Diet, I just want to say that I shall miss it. Mrs Almost Average is winding down - she's achieved in a year much more than most blogs ever do. I know she's working on a book - as an ex-editor and current long-suffering-wife-of-an-author, I hope things are going well and wish her (and Mr A) luck, inspiration and a speedy publication.

Wanted: Birdwatcher

I need someone who has time on their hands and who wants to sit in a field, checking on a chicken for a few hours a day. Having destroyed the last bracken nest to make sure that the chicken was safe(r) from the foxes, my errant Maran is laying somewhere but I'm damned if I can work out where. I've hunted every section of the hedge in the field as well as the undergrowth in our shrubbery. Lottie came in handy here as she's under a metre tall and could get under the bushes. Not that she found anything. I reckon there's at least four eggs hiding somewhere but I just don't have time right now to follow the chicken all day, to find out where.

Not a cowboy movie

Maybe they're not the cavalry or Indians after all. Maybe they've seen that Hitchcock movie, although I don't recall chickens amongst the various species attacking Tippi Hedren. Still when I saw them on the fence outside the sitting-room, waiting, watching...

Under siege

I think it will only be a matter of time before we lose a chicken/s to a fox. On the second day running, in broad daylight, I've surprised a fox lurking on the wooded mound on the other side of the chicken field. It's not really fair to say it was lurking. It was of course going about its perfectly natural business of stalking something to eat - could be a rabbit or it could be this chicken.

I say this chicken in particular as she (a Maran) has taken to hedge laying and has chosen the not particularly safe hedge bordering on the wooded mound. I found the eggs the other day having suspected that the Marans had moved nesting site from the safer and more convenient house. Then I saw one coming back from laying and went to look in that direction. I found 5 beautiful eggs and left the warmest, following Suzanne's advice to leave an egg so the chicken will continue to go back there. Mind you I'm not sure I should encourage her to. Perhaps I should retrieve the eggs and cut the bracken down to make the area less tempting for nesting. Then maybe she will move to a safer place. Meanwhile, it seems she's the only one doing this. There were five eggs in the nesting box as per usual. And I'm not sure the other Maran has started laying this spring.

Runs in the family

A photograph from 1915, of my grandmother with her mother feeding birds. I thought they were chickens but I'm not sure they are. They seem rather small next to my very small and young grandmother. Anyone want to offer their thoughts on identification is very welcome.

We've just moved to this method of feeding having discovered that putting the food in a feeder led to mess and rodents. So now the chickens are being made to work for their dinner. The upside is that the run isn't being scratched out of existence and the r-a-t problem is lessening (too soon to say it's gone). The downside is that every time you head out of the door into the garden, you are ambushed. Mind you, as one of the funniest things you can see is a chicken running, I am rather enjoying this. And the sight of the chickens appearing over the hill, running at speed towards me does bring in mind the cavalry riding to the rescue, or perhaps the Indians on the attack - "get the wagons into a circle".

Fancy chickens?

I should be cooking dinner. Fish pie. But I'm going to write some random thoughts about chickens instead. I can see how people become chicken fanciers - though I do wish they could choose another word for it. Fancying chickens just sounds a little odd, if not indeed warped. We now have seven chickens, three types. And there really is no justification for getting more as that would involve another house and more eggs than I or my chicken-sharer Sue would know what to do with. But I would really like a Buff Orpington because they look so nice. Oh, and a Legbar because they lay blue eggs. Wow. Never see that colour in the shops. Which I suppose means they don't lay enough to make it commercial but there is something lovely about a blue egg. And having spent a winter wondering what the point of the Marans was as they were eating huge quantities of food and annoying my other chickens, I now see that they lay beautiful dark brown shiny eggs. Shiny in a way that the Black Rock and Light Sussex eggs are not. I know the inside of the egg is basically the same but these eggs look so lovely. So I am in fact an egg fancier, which is possibly even weirder than a chicken fancier.

More eggs!

Today we had six eggs, which by a process of complex Sherlock Holmes style deduction (7 chickens of which 5 hybrids thus...) tells me that one of the Marans has started laying.


Left to right: A Maran, a Black Rock and a Light Sussex. Lovely.

Back to the garden

It is an age since I spent any significant time in the garden. But now is the time to head back in there and start planning and preparing for what will hopefully be a better summer and a bumper harvest. The first job was accomplished by Tom - defence against the chickens. Having seen what they can do to a bed of seedlings, it was clear we needed to take action before anything was planted. So Tom spent Saturday and Sunday fixing poultry netting over the beds. This will hopefully also keep the rabbits out. I think the beds look rather good don't they.


And there are two of these small netting cloches to protect the proto-asparagus bed and the rhubarb.

I am hopeful that we're not too late with them as the chickens were at one point using the asparagus bed as a dustbath.

Chicken update

I just haven't had time to sort out the chicken problem. I think however that it may be sorting itself out. Today was a horrible rainy day but I got 5 eggs from the nesting box and the Marans seem marginally less bossy and territorial. So thank you to all who gave useful advice. I may implement some later but right now I am hoping that life is settling down.

And the eggs are lovely. Just look at the colour of this scrambled eggs (today's lunch).