2010

It's amazing that January is already half way done - most of the time has been spent whipping the huskies into a frenzy to get the sled going to transport me to and fro between work and home. Well watching the news you would think that's how it was. Sure its been snowy but isn't that what winter is about? A few inches of snow and transportation seems to collapse - the trains are bloody useless!

Anyway, I think the girls are glad to see the end of the all the snowy weather. Of course with snow on the ground even when they were given access to have a run about in the garden they were not having any of it and stayed resolutely in the run. Now the lawn is clear they are more than happy to run about on very soggy grass eating all the wild bird seed that has been thrown from the bird table and then revealed by the receding snow.

And no news - nothing really has changed. Ruby is eventually looking slightly better, lots of pin feathers now so not long until she is back to glorious normality. Saying that, in the condition she is now there is no chance of eggs from her for a while. Harriet on the other hand is fairly close to laying and I would be surprised if we didn't get an egg in the next week. She crouches as soon as she gets a hand any where near her, she is looking wonderful and lastly I would say she is eating really well but as her other name is "Pigsy" its hardly surprising, that silkie will eat anything! And Stella - still looking gorgeous and still being an orpington to the core and not laying a ruddy thing. Have to say she really is calming down a lot.

Its really interesting to note that last year we gave the girls lighting every morning so they could start feeding at 6.30am. As this entailed a right rigmarole of swapping lights, recharging batteries, etc this year we didn't bother. The girls seem fine however last year we have eggs virtually all winter and this year obviously not, the last egg being laid in mid November. Might revert to lighting up mornings again next winter to see if it really does keep egg production going.

To finish - a quick update on the chicks that left us in the autumn, and proper chickens they are now and we are so happy to still be in contact with the wonderful folk who now have them.

Sebastian and Doris looking splendid

Firstly Sebastian and Doris the speckled sussex bantams. Ros has sent us some great photos of them, both are looking marvellous especially Sebastian who seems to have grown into a very handsome chap - and looking at the pictures they look as if they are living in rural paradise!

Secondly Eggnog and the Borg (Shirl and Pearl) who went to Annie and Tim, again from south London suburbs to the beautifully green countryside of rustic Dorset. Now the kids were going in with an already established group of chickens and initially they did have a bit of a slight kicking however the Borg are happily settled in and Eggnog really does rule the roost and keeps his girls very happy according to Annie. Slight problem in that Shirl might be Stan so we will await further information.

Eggnog with Shirl and Pearl in the background

Okay, that's it - hopefully next update will include the joyous news of an egg!

Catch-up time.......

It's a couple of weeks since updating the blog as lots of things going on.

Whipsnade in the snow

The great snowfall managed to bugger up London for a couple of days but nothing in comparison to Whipsnade in Bedfordshire where the snow kept falling and falling! Ten days later and London was almost snow free though we had a very wet garden.

Another visit to Rainham Marshes - nowhere near as cold as our last visit but still lots of ice about. We got some amazing "almosts". Cetti's warbler calling but not seen, a flash, glimpse and rustle in the reeds which was almost probably a water rail and a small brown avian predator that we saw on the ground which was almost probably a female merlin - I hate "almosts" :)

Seeds and potatoes arrived this week. The allotment has been sadly neglected over the winter months as its either been covered in snow or so wet that the clay makes it impossible to work there anyway. Despite that we have been planning what we will be growing this year so its always exciting when seeds and the like arrive. Swift and Maris Peer are the spuds we are growing and lots of squash of various varieties - watch this space. (We have hardly made a dent on the jerusalem artichoke harvest - is all the farting worth it?)

And on to chickens;

Our girls do not like snow.

Despite the cold we are getting 2 - 3 eggs per day as all the Sussex are laying.

I did some work on the skyline nestbox - new funky ladder. Margot and Cybil are using it.

This morning (Sunday) I could have seriously wrung the necks of Cybil and Margot and looked forward to chicken casserole this evening. 7.20a.m. and you should have heard the noise. Why do they make SO much noise before they go and lay an egg? In the interests of neighbourly relations I had put them back in the night shelter and covered the door window with a sack so they had instant night. I could still hear Cybil having a right old cluck for a couple of minutes but they all went to roost and we got an hours grace with the locals - God alone knows what will happen when dawn arrives at 4.55a.m. in summer??


The garden is a complete tip! On the good side the girls have really done a good job on wiping out the highly invasive garlic chives, the down side is that anything that looks like a garlic chive has gone as well (bye crocus!). Still, daffodils and snowdrops are doing okay and the soil has never been worked so hard through scratching and general chicken mining. I am amazed at the devastation 4 chickens can cause i.e. as fast as you brush up and put the soil/leaf compost/bark chips back on the border the little buggers throw it back again. SODS!


Harriet is still broody despite everything we do:

• she is sitting on nothing unless Ruby lays an egg inside then Harriet will go and sit on it. I am tempted to put our ostrich egg in the nestbox as I am sure she would sit on it.


• when I throw her out of the nestbox for the day she goes and just broods anywhere


• when I lock her out of the run and she spends the day in the garden without any problem the second the run is open she rushes straight in and even if she can't get in a nestbox she just snuggles herself in for a good old brood on the shed floor

What will we do with her!

Thoughts of the week:

King vulture egg at London - I cannot tell you how exciting that is (4 years of hard work!)

Bloody civil ceremony doing my head in (but all in a positive way)

Blade Runner (one of my favourite all time films) was based in 2019 - only 9 years until we start getting problems with replicants and me worrying if I can get chickens to the off-world colonies.

The great snowfall of 2009

Harriet is still broody - what makes a hen want to sit on nothing? I admit that snuggled into a nest of warm straw on these cold mornings is a great idea but as there are no eggs to sit on I wonder how she keeps the inspiration.

Harriet gets down and dirty as normal

Since the arrival of the Skylon nest Cybil and Margot head for the sky to lay eggs so making them unavailable to the Harriet incubation service. Ruby has now started to lay (at last) but not on a regular basis and is using the normal nestbox so Harriet does leap onto any egg that appears but they are irregular.
We do throw Harriet out of the nestbox twice a day for toilet duties, food, water and some exercise however Saturday we kicked her out for a couple of hours while I cleaned out the shed and run. Bless her she went for her mud-bath, fertilised the lawn with the biggest, smelliest poo and then got bored that she couldn't get into her nestbox so decided to brood phantom eggs at the back of the run in the woodchip! Bonkers bird.

"Okay Dad, I don't care if you shut me out, I'll nest in the run!"

Sunday night saw a few flurries of snow. Dire warning on the television about an "Extreme Weather Event" snow, snow and more snow. Heard it all before.

So "oh bugger" when we woke up in the morning!

One look out of the bedroom windows saw that we had substantial snowfall

I am so glad that we had put on the extra plastic - psychic weather insight?

How deep is that snow at 6am in the morning?

From the photo below you can see that trying to get to work was going to be pointless. The road was the quality of a pure white skating rink, for the first time in many, many years the entire bus network in London was suspended and as you can see - no trains were running at all. I gave up trying to get to work at 10am.

So daylight arrived and we saw Honor Oak Park and south London covered in snow.

Fishpond looking like and advert for a polar bear fast food cafe

And you had to get out there and make sure there was enough food for the wild birds.

A visit to the allotment gave some amazing views over a white and quiet London.

Of course we had to let the girls out for a quick look at the snow - they were not keen that's for sure.

Harriet by this time had already been into the run for a quick feed before rushing back to the imaginary eggs leaving Cybil, Margot and Ruby to take to the snowy lawns of Honor Oak.

"ooh Margot, I'm not keen on this white stuff"

I do have to say that the girls should be hating us at the moment as for the last three days we have had to catch them all and dose them with wormer however they have been most loving as normal (apart from the aloof Ruby) and any medicine has been supplemented with mealworms to make the ordeal instantly forgettable.

Margot on the prowl and realising she's not as white as she thinks she is.

The girls looking suspiciously at snow - if you are really eagle-eyed you can see Harriet's brief outing into the snow.

So a horrible period of wetness ahead as all this snow thaws. No eggs for a week as there is a withdrawal period for the eggs as we used Panacur to work the girls.

As you may have gathered, the girls do get a few too many treats and as we are buying "basics" range from the market we pick up any cheap greens and sweetcorn and they are still getting their mealworms. I remember mixing mash with boiled veg peelings and old bread with hot water when I was a little lad, on my grandparents small holding, for the chickens. The smell was so reminiscent with childhood. Reading up I wondered if there was some worth in providing layers mash as part of the daily feed as for the chickens to bulk up on pellets would be really quick - it takes lots of time to eat the same in mash. It's a trial - they aren't impressed as all the pellet goes first but I guess it keeps them occupied and they get so many other treats.

Lets see how this week unfolds.

In the Midst of Winter

So, I go on about it being cold. "Nesh" is a peculiarly Northern term for not being quite as hardy and cold tolerant as perhaps one should be. Today I was "nesh".

Half the plants in the garden are looking extremely bad, not only is the frost killing them with cold but they are completely dehydrated. I gave in and bought some echiums into the house, a good re-hydration and two out of the three are looking fine, I fear the very tender one has succumbed.

Frost on the chicken run roof

While being on holiday over the festive period it has given the girls free range for garden decimation. Even though it was crisp and frosty, after a good feed all the chickens had a try at dust bathing, and they succeeded in finding a small amount of earth under some large echiums.

As you can see from the photo below, Ruby also got a very brief opportunity to sun bathe.

Weekends are also clean out times. Halfway through cleaning out the shed Harriet decided she wanted to lay an egg so stood there while John rushed and filled up the nest boxes with the appropriate wood shavings and straw. When a girl wants to lay, she will NOT be bothered by the orderlies cleaning the home!

"Come on Dad, I can't lay on newspaper"

So a weekend treat before the great return to work was an early morning bird-watch at Rainham Marshes http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/r/rainhammarshes/index.asp. It's the first time we have visited, no idea why not before as it seems to be our most local RSBP reserve.

Thames estuary on an early sunday morning with the thermometer registering -2 degrees c, it was a real way to wake up and also to wonder how birds manage to seemingly continue as normal in such weather.

Even with the weather and thinking that with such freezing temperatures visiting a marsh (and all that frozen water) was not such a good idea it was in fact wonderful if not slightly bone chilling (as I said before, nesh - gloves don't work as its so long since we had proper cold weather).

However we saw some great birds - a first for both of us was a jack snipe and in the three hours we were there we clocked up 42 species. You can view the list of all the birds we saw at: http://www.birddiary.co.uk/diaryentry.asp?did=6479

Following are some great shots that captured the morning:

Goldfinch on hawthorn and below on fence wire

Coots and waterfowl in a small space of water in an icy lagoon

Grey heron on ice


More chilly coots and gulls

Frosty stonechat - our companions on the walk

The stonechats were very approachable and confident around people

Male reed bunting feeding - not seen one in a while and we saw LOTS at this site

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

Santa's Special Sussex Bantam - Merry Margot

The festive season is well and truly upon us now. A week of Christmas parties has left me bereft of normal liver functions, sleep and chicken contact, bless those girls they have been keeping busy without us. I do have to say that baby Jesus has lots to answer for but definitely keeps the UK bar and restaurant trade very busy for a month.

Our Christmas chick on this occasion is Margot. Please note the highly festive tree fern in the background, antipodean version of our very own festive fir.

Margot looking lovely in the garden behind a festive tree fern

We have been amazed at the increase in egg production. We have continued the lighting regime, merely an hour extra in the morning and allowing the girls to get out and scratch through the borders at every opportunity really is paying off. Last night we were away staying at the Sloane Square Hotel (and very lovely it was as well) which meant that the nestbox wasn't checked for 36 hours.

What a shock we had when we got back home. 5 eggs! which means that there have to be at least three hens laying.

Needless to say that Cybil is top layer and Harriet we are 98% positive on number 2 layer but who is number 3?
Bets on, its a difficult call however we think that it could well be our cover girl this evening, Margot.

A quick note on internet purchasing. I ordered a "pecka block" and some 4 egg egg-boxes from Flyte So Fancy http://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/index.html. Can just say that the service and goods well deserve a mention as they were ordered on a Monday evening and were with me Wednesday morning - so thank you!

And finally - HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my gorgeous fella, 39 today (old git in the making)

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"

Frosty mornings and a welcome to the world

Early December's cold weather continues however it does seem somewhat more seasonal now than in October.

The girls are getting very familiar with frosty mornings and although its damn cold I've no problem going down the garden to open the night shelter door at 5.45am each weekday morning.

They now have a battery (rechargeable of course) light it means that they are straight out into the run and feeding. It works better than having the light on in the evening as once they have gone to roost they are not easily encouraged to do anything where as mornings it gives them an extra half hour before sunrise. Something is obviously working as Cybil is still laying - one a day.

Margot (with Rubster in the background) inspecting a frosty lawn

The chicken house is on the deck at the bottom of the garden and most of the pathway has been covered in large echiums (Echium pininana if you are interested http://www.trevenacross.co.uk/shop/pics.asp?plantid=362 for pictures and http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/11031.shtml for information on the plant).

I digress, the point is that as we can't walk down the path so we are churning the lawn to a slippery, slidey dirty and gunky mud bath - not desirable. So the weekend project was make a new path, consisting of lifting out a muddy stripe of lawn and filling it with woodchip (free from the council). Perfect in execution and lovely to look at, walking down to the chicken house was a pleasure on the new path. No mud all over the place and the fact you didn't need several changes of wellies and boots just to get to the house was an added joy. It took the girls approximately 5 minutes to realise that it was a brand new toy to be scratched, dug up and completely enjoyed. Chicken enrichment at its best!

Ruby wondering why frozen worms don't taste good.

Margot looking all grown up

Christmas has arrived with Harriet and Lottie heavily disguised as snowballs

Few other things of mention that have had me thinking over the past couple of days.

With the smoking ban, more tax increases on beer and people being more inclined to get a bottle of wine to drink at home we hear more and more over the demise of the British pub. Interesting then that French bars and cafe society are going down the same path as the pub - the gauloise plume that hung from every bar ceiling has disappeared, a glass of red wine replaced by a bottle of white at home. Sometimes we think that we have all the problems here in the UK, not so, and oddly another community asset/link/facility slowly disappears.

And finally - welcome to the world Ferdinand Jack, all 8lbs 3ozs, born 7th December 2008