Weekend Chickens and the joys of a weather "app"

Forest Hill's noisiest chicken - Tallulah!

Sometimes I bloody dislike those chickens! Right I'm the first one not to have a lie-in but seriously, 7am on a Sunday morning and you are not going to be best popular with husband or neighbours when all the girls start screeching.

Not an alarm call, just that really annoying noisy clucking cum half strangled squawk that got me out of bed to both see what the matter was and stop the wretched din. And the problem causing this poultry furore? That would be Harriet using the nestbox that Tallulah wanted to be in. For goodness sake you would have thought that Tallulah could have at least used the nestbox next door but no, she stood there screeching at the top of her voice, Nigella joining in just because she could and Harriet answering them back. Letting them into the garden solved the problem however after all that din we only got one egg. 
As I said, bloody chickens.

By odd coincidence I took some video of the girls feeding off a corn cob stuck on a skewer and dangling from a wire. A bend in the skewer has been a new addition as it twirls the corn around and keeps the girls amused for considerably longer than previous. It's alway good to do at this time of year as corn is so cheap however I do realize it's not doing anything for the girls egg laying abilities and girths. Oddly looking back it was almost a year to the day since I last videoed them doing this very thing.

Chasing the corn

RainAlarm failed to tell me about this

Much can be said of the Great British summer, for I remember it well and sadly finished in June. The past week has been the normal cycle of rain, sunshine, heavy rain, glimpse of sun, very heavy rain, vague daylight, monsoon. 
In a moment of apparent or indeed abject stupidity I downloaded an app for the iPod called RainAlarm - what a wonderful waste of time.
Firstly due to the constantly inclement weather it doesn't stop pinging and telling me that there is precipitation 4.3km away, 4.2km, away, etc. Of course what it's not telling me is that I am soaked to the skin while cleaning the chickens out and it doesn't seem to realise that the heavens have actually opened up over me! Why no monsoon warning for SE23?

Still, we can but cherish the moments of sunshine and warmth and rejoice in the fact that at least all the slugs and snails that are reproducing rampantly in these moist climes are providing a veritable feast for the girls. Lets hope it provides the edible stimulus for laying more eggs!

Harriet - all she wanted to do was lay the egg.

Operation Harriet

How do you measure happiness? In chicken world, in fact Harriet's world to be precise, the greatest joy of all is a dust bath! The fact that the dust can be mud seems to make no difference what so ever - the main objective seems to get all your lovely white feathers as dirty as possible!

Harriet disguised as a mud slick

We are not sure quite what happened but either Harriet mistook the pond for a giant mudpool or she was trying to dabble in the mud around the pond - whatever, she fell in! Now if one thing that silkies are and that is a very good sponge! I got outside to find a very wet, bedraggled and generally feeling sorry for herself little chicken. Despite giving her a dry off and putting her inside when I checked later she was still not looking happy.

Operation Harriet into action - big towel rubdown, bit of fuss, lots of mealworms and a night spent in the kitchen in a box with lots of nice dry wood shaving and straw and the next morning she was as fit and chirpier than ever!

Lottie and Ruby on a frosty morning

It has been one of the coldest Decembers for many a year, of course the first instant benefit is no mud for Harriet (though I am dreading the thaw). We await to see how many of the garden plants get through the winter. The bananas and echiums are looking particularly sorry for themselves however the tree ferns look spectacular glistening in their frosty overcoats. The other cause of horticultural destruction is of course the girls - I think we will be wiring areas off as spring arrives just to preserve some plants!

Tree fern fronds covered in frost

It's been an amazing year - there is no doubt that five little chickens have helped in that so all that remains is for us to wish you all the most wonderful and prosperous New Year xx

Seasonal Cybil

     Okay, so even I have to admit that the photographer and image builder went a little overboard here! Still, with what looks like a clutch of festive baubles instead of eggs Cybil is still cranking out 6 eggs per week.

     Yesterday was truly grim, 24 hours of very heavy rain. The girls had to spend most of the day in the run as it seemed pointless letting them out just to get very wet and very muddy. Still, I went and cleaned out the night shed so they did have an hour but were very easy to get back in - mealworms and corn in a nice dry run or scratching around the borders and lawn in the deluge?

Cybil with seasonal spheres and Santa headwear

     Despite having 4 feeders in the garden we have a complete lack of garden birds visiting. In previous years we have had a good selection of birds including blue, coal and great tits, robins, hedge sparrow - you get the idea. This winter we a bereft of small birds! We have the occasional blackbird and a plucky robin but that seems to be about it! I did add some food to the bird table (we usually feed just from hanging feeders due to previous problems with squirrels) but the only birds to eat off there was a magpie and a very fat wood pigeon. Some long-tailed tits and the occasional goldcrest put in an appearance in the trees at the bottom of the garden, ring-necked parakeets and crows are also seen over the house but never visit. In the 5 years we have been here we still have to see a house sparrow! So where have they all gone? 

Great tit at a feeder - not in our garden unfortunately

Ho Ho Harriet

Party season has now kicked off full time now - fortunately the girls have complete party outfits!

Today driving up the M1 from London to Whipsnade it was snowing and once up on the Downs there was a generally scattering of the white stuff.

In recognition of this today's photo is of the hen version of a snowball, Harriet, looking resplendent if not somewhat slightly grumpy.

Cybil laid again, currently running at 6 eggs per week. Why or what triggered mid winter laying? Answers on a postcard (actually just leave a comment)

Ho Ho Harriet in festive pose

Festive Fowl

Okay, my lovely partner has been playing around in a festive manner so over the next week or so we'll have a few photos of the Girls in Christmas mode. I am of course useless of any kind of pun however please add comments if you can do better on a photo title (listeners to Capital FM breakfast show with Johnnie Vaughan and Lisa Snowdon should be a dab hand at this!)

In honour of David Beckham, Ruby appears in panto as "Goldenbells"

The real "Goldenballs"

Mid November musings and pics

After the snows of earlier this month mid-November is back to being grey, wet but surprisingly mild.

Of course the girls are only getting out into the garden at weekends now, when we are about. We are still being plagued by cats and not happy leaving the bantams out and unattended.


As you can see they really enjoy trashing the garden and I am actually wondering if anything will grow at all next year as they are doing a great job at digging everything up!

We decided to have a bit of a mid autumn clear out so moved the pen, scrubbed the deck down, added all new wood chips and removed the horrid ramp up to the night shelter and made a branch ladder in the style used by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to replace it. It looks much nicer, makes the pen seem larger and the old ramp got very dirty.

Super Ruby was the first to try it out - no problem

And to prove how easy and stylish you can look on your new designer ladder she showed the girls how to get down as well.

Chicken's eye view - the girls are looking suspiciously at the photographer here but all loving the new bark chips.

I love this photo - its so funny, they look so guilty! Chickens caught by paparazzi :)

Didn't take them long however to get back outside and start helping me move leaves!

I thought that Lottie would have been problematic about going up to the night shelter but it was Margot in the end that was having a small trauma but only took her a minute to decide she was going in after the other two Sussex went in.

Who's who - HARRIET

Silkies I have to say were not one of my favourite breeds as they are not particularly productive layers and also having blue skin don't make the best of Sunday roasts. But as they say, experience can really change your mind!

Silkies have been around for hundreds of year and probably originating from Japan or China. Because of their fluffy plumage they are very poor fliers so are happy to plod around the garden.

Positive points: very placid and docile, gorgeous looking, inquisitive

Negative points: as a breed they aren't the best of egg producers. Harriet likes mud which never goes well with pristine white plumage.


Head silkie and probably number three in the flock

All in all silkies are a new breed to me and I have been really impressed. Looking forward to some eggs at some stage but I think they are more for good looks than the pot.