December 2009

1 Lacey is my special friend just now.  Whenever I venture out into the garden, she sneaks up quietly behind me to see if there's a treat going - especially if I go to the tack room where their corn etc is kept.
2 "Our" moorhens are getting very bold.  They come closer to the house every day, especially near the door where we have thrown morning corn for the hens.
3 In all this dreary and very wet weather, I miss sitting outside and having a chicken jump into my lap to try to steal a titbit.  Sad, but true.
4 Clover's a bit strange at bedtime.  Sometimes she's out on the perch with Lacey and other nights she's first into the nest to try to bag her favourite spot.
5 Aah, I was watching this evening and the Clover mystery is solved but it's a bit sad.  It seems that on some nights she goes into the nest and then gets "bullied" out.  Lacey is usually already settled on the top outside perch.  Clover goes up there and pecks Lacey until she jumps down.  Then Clover bags her favourite spot on the top perch (right next to the hen house where Lacey had settled) and Lacey has to gingerly come back up and settle beside her.  Talk about passing along the pecking....
6 I really wish chickens didn't poop in their bed, it's quite an unpleasant task to clean out the nest each day.
7 When will there be eggs?  I'm not looking forward to buying free range eggs.  I know I'll be horrified at the price and they still won't be as good as ours.  Not many commercial free range chicks are grass fed like ours and it's eating grass that makes the yolks such a rich orange colour.
8 If this wet weather ever ends, we can give the chicken run a good clean out.
9 Can you think of a word that changes both number and gender when you add the letter 'S'?
(This is nothing to do with chickens.)  Answer in five days time.
10

At the moment Tat, Salt & Pepper's new feathers are very dense and short and short of forming gentle ridges (this is very hard to describe).  I've nick-named them my Candlewick Chicks" which probably give you the best idea about their current look, as long as you are old enough to remember the candlewick bedspread.
11 What came first, the chicken or the egg?  There's an answer now.  According to National Geographic, scientists have settled this old dispute. They say that reptiles were laying eggs thousands of years before chickens appeared, and the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that was not quite a chicken. That seems to answer the question. The egg came first.
Still not sure how the bird became a chicken, if the egg wasn't laid by a chicken.  That's evolution, I guess.
12 How lovely it is to see Tat, Salt & Pepper with spotlessly clean bottoms.  Their new feathers have completely covered their bald bottoms and so far they haven't got poo on their new feathers yet.  Place your bets for how long it will take and who will be first to have a dirty bottom again.
13 A fresh but dry weekend was forecast but it rained yesterday and there it's showery today.  We'd been waiting for a dry day to clean out the chicken run.  Can't wait any longer, we've just had to get on with it.
14 Answer for puzzle on 9th:  Add 's' to Princes to get Princess.
15 The current habit, even as colder nights are here, is for Aggie, Tat, Salt & Pepper to sleep in the hen house while Lacey and Clover stay out on the top outdoor perch.
16 There might be an egg layer soon (please!) as I am scraping up quite a few, what I call, eggy poos.
17 21:30  It's very cold and snowing.  The wind is blowing hard from the opposite direction to normal to Clover & Lacey have no shelter.  We donned our wellies, went out and lifted them both into the hen house.  Big softies, huh?
18 Chicks are confined to their run.  Not by us (the doors are wide open) but by their dislike of the snow.  Pepper has tried eating some of it, but still won't walk on it.  They've come out of the nest for corn, but all made their way back in.
14:30  Wickedly, I had to throw all of the chickens out of the nest to clean out their poop.  Yuk!  Don't want them to sleep in their own mess though.  After a feed, they all returned to the nest, although Clover & Lacey needed a bit of encouragement.
15:30  Bird brains!  Clover is perched and Lacey is out of the nest and no doubt going to perch and snow is falling thick and fast again, although it's not windy like yesterday.
19 The chickens confined themselves again and look very bored.  Crow ventured into the net tunnel to get them something green - two pak choi which are now too bitter for us to eat.  That disappeared very quickly.
20 I'm sure the chicks think this isn't funny any more.  They are getting thoroughly bored by all of this white stuff.  On the other hand, I'm quite glad they stay away from the deep snow as I'm sure they'd get frost-bitten toes if they ran around in it.
21 A supermarket treat - a bag of spinach and a bag of beetroot salad - so that the hens can have some "green".
22 My, my, do they love their spinach.
23 My babes must be desperate for a nice dry patch of sand, soil or dirt to bathe in.  Might be some time yet, so we see lots of wing flapping and preening to keep themselves clean.
24 The girls have been able to venture a little way down the back garden as a path across the gravel and a patch of the grass has thawed.
25 Cluck, cluck, cluck (three cheers) from the girls as overnight, the grass has reappeared.
26 Crow forgot to give the chicks their Xmas present!  Once a year, they are allowed a small fat ball between them.  They're proper "girls".  They love everything they shouldn't eat.
27 Lucky girls got another favourite this evening - all the green carrot tops from my harvest.
28 Pigs are very clean and particular beats in that they never soil within 6 feet of their housing.  If I buy a pig, will it teach the chickens not to soil their nest?
29 We throw corn on the grass when we first let the chicks out and there's a shrub nearby where I'm sure a little wren lives.  I watched her this morning warily hopping closer and closer to the chickens, which must be quite giant-size to her.  Eventually she steals a piece of corn and, like lightning, disappears under her bush with it.  Then a few moments later, the whole process starts again.
30 Chicks are resuming normal behaviour after there moulting and subdued in the snow spells and are starting to run to the door for treats every time they hear it open.
31 Dare I suggest that Salt's comb is turning a bit redder and she's hungrily eating so she may (please, please) start laying again soon?
  eggs this month
eggs this year