What To Do First

Big plans this weekend and the snow has stopped them all!
Still It means I can draw up some plans in the warm. I've decided that the first smallholding job I should do is to build a chicken pen and coop. I left my old coop at the old house as it was built for the pen that its in. I'm thinking of having around 8-10 laying birds to start with, hybrids probably, as we had 9 before and it seemed a manageable number to deal with. Also with this amount we can sell the surplus eggs to the neighbours and passers by to help pay for food and bedding.
Any one got any ideas on the perfect coop. I'm going to raise it off the ground by 18" to stop rats and give the birds something to shelter under and have some nest boxes on the side.
I've also got to think about the work to be done on some of the trees. Many of the large oaks need their crown raising as there are some heavy lower branches on them and it would benefit the trees if they were removed (also benefit the firewood pile!). Good job I've got a kind hearted brother to help me with this!

A Visit From Mr. Fox

Woke up this morning and went through all my usual routines, then unlocked the back door - but didn't hear the chickens going mad like they usually do when I go outside. I knew straight away what must have happened, I grabbed a torch and confirmed it.

All nine chickens dead. The fox had only taken one and killed the rest for fun, they lay around the pen, heads bitten off.

I guess I've only got myself to blame as for the last four years I've only shut them in when its been cold and the one pen I thought was pretty fox proof. I'll learn from this and make sure in future I always shut them in - being in a village with a big fence all round the garden is no obstacle to a fox!

Even though I know the fox will be back tonight I don't feel very good about waving my 12 bore out of the bedroom window in the middle of a village (even though one neighbour has asked me to) and I can't set any snares or traps due to to other wildlife.

Looks like the fox won this one.

I'll have to wait until the spring now to get some more chickens so no fresh eggs this winter.

Last Sunday's roast

The cockerel has crowed its last crow.
After a light hearted complaint from a neighbour, I decided it was time to silence the cockerel and his mate (one was just starting to crow) and make a nice dinner out of them. Not only was he noisy but he also liked to get violent, my wife didn't like to be in the pen with him.
"Little chicken syndrome"
They both had loads of fat inside them (from their mainly corn fed diet) and the leg meat was much darker than what you buy in the shops (mainly because he'd been using them). Very tasty and they fed three of us easily with big greedy portions. Might have to hatch some more meat birds later in the year.
The rest of the hen are fine and enjoying themselves, spending their days scratching in the dirt and eating all the brussel sprouts that have "blown". I will have to find these new hens homes soon so I can replant the lawn for the summer! They've just started to lay (21 weeks old this week) and I keep finding little bantam eggs dotted around the pen.

No fun for the chickens

Well without wanting to say what everyone else is saying but I'm fed up with the snow, its cost me a weeks work and my chickens are pretty much too frightened to leave the coops. At least the garden look nice!

Chicken Run

Well our 10 (not so) little chicks and mum have gotten a little bit too big for the arc that they were hatched in, so last weekend I fenced off a large area of the garden and wired up half of the old shed for a coop.

We moved them in on Friday night, after clipping their wings , and they love it! Running round scratching in the leaves and grass while the mother hen clucks away. Trouble is it looks good now but by the end of the week I'm sure it will be like a mud bath! Never mind, its a more natural way for them to live and they should be big enough to eat by January so we should have grass back in the spring, unless we hatched another batch...

The sad thing is, at six weeks if these were Ross Cobs then they would be killing weight now and end up as the cheap chicken in the supermarkets! Mine have got another couple of months yet, to grow at the speed that nature intended them to. It's ridiculous that they still allow chickens to be reared so fat and so fast.

Squashes and Apple Pancakes

Another very full weekend.

Yesterday was Malvern Autumn Show and we made our twice yearly trip. It was a great day and we managed not to spend too much, although we did buy a wormery (I've wanted one for ages) and 5 different types of garlic to try - This year I plan to grow it at home and the allotment and see which soil type it does best in.

Today I've spent quite a while down the allotment, I've started to harvest the squashes as the leaves have started to die on some of the plants and they've hardened up nicely. I also started to knock in the fence posts for our next allotment although I had to keep tapping the end of the sledge hammer as the head was threatening to fly off!

The chicks are growing up fast and becoming less cute by the day. Its funny how annoyed Claire now get when people question us for having chickens to eat, saying its cruel or they don't know how we do it, when we both see it as natural and how we'd prefer to get our meat. It's really nice that we both have the same values where food is concerned.

Teenage Mother

Well our Teenage Mother of a broody hen has hatched out her random assortment of eggs and so far there are 10 bundles of fluff of all different colours keeping their mother busy. There are still a couple of eggs left which seem to have chicks in, but if they haven't hatched by the morning then it will be a total of 10 out of 16 hatched. Not too bad for her first time sitting on eggs.

I'm now a bit worried about what we're going to do with our new chickens when they grow up. I've planned where they're going to go in the garden (they're going to have the area under the hazel tree and some of the old garden shed to live in). The boys will be fattened up for the freezer, the ladies will have a longer future I think...

What to do with a Broody Hen...

Normally I get quite annoyed by my hens going broody but this week I decided not to keep chucking her off the nest or put ice cubes under her. Instead I've been given 16 quite random eggs ranging in colour and size to hatch out.

The eggs were given to me from a nice couple who have a smallholding just down the road from my fathers farm, I'd never met them before but my dad sells them corn and straw for their animals. When I picked the eggs up they showed me the possible ex-owners of the eggs and the two possible cockerels who could be the fathers (one large barnavelda and a small buff arpington bantam). The hens ranged from welshsummers, light sussex, rhode island red and a large number of crosses (big and small), I'm pretty sure if this hen manages to hatch out these eggs then anything could turn up!

My worries are that I've put too many eggs under her (16 - anyone know if this is too many), the hen is very young (not even a year old - teenage pregnancy!) and she is a hybrid and although she is being a good mother now (and very vicious with it) will her broodiness last 21 days and how will she behave when they hatch?

Red Mite Hell

Well the red mites on the chickens just dont seem to go away.

All through the summer I've been having trouble keeping these vampire bugs under control and no matter how many times I clean out the house, put powder down and dust the chickens, they keep coming back. I do seem to be on top of them a bit more now, the chickens are looking healthy besides all the trouble and they're laying really well - We've started to sell a few again which is nice.

Other than that its been a lovely weekend, I didnt have to work saturday so managed to do a few jobs round the house and in the garden and had my brother round for a BBQ. Afterwards we watched the channel 4 series "Alone in the Wild" which is amazing and it's started me off looking at doing more survial courses in the future.

Strawberries

The sun has been shining all weekend and I’ve had my first big lot of strawberries. It was a rather decadent breakfast for the two of us but very nice. I’ve decided to pull my garlic and set it in the greenhouse to dry off. I’m not sure if this is a bit early as some of it was quite small, but last year I left it in too late and lost half of it, the leaves on what I pulled had all started to go yellow and wilt. In its place I planted loads of pak choi and some frilly red lettuce, the plan this year is to have lots of days where we don’t have to take sandwiches and take salads instead. Already we’ve been having lots of salads as I planted up a grow bag by the back door with mixed salad leaves so it handy for adding to meals.
My next door neighbour has just got some ex-battery hens, these are in a much sorrier state than the one’s we got, hardly any feathers at all but they’ll soon look like new chickens in no time!

A busy day today

Managed to finish the new chicken coop, which the hens seem to love, although I had to catch them to put them to bed – I’m sure they’ll learn where they’ve got to go soon enough! Tried to get them up the ladder by leaving corn on each step, seemed to work as they were in and out all day but couldn't do it in the dark! Really pleased with the coop and pen, their old one is now sitting empty for a while and I’ve promised not to get anything else until I’ve started my new job and got used to it!
Claire sent off for some seeds from Blue Peter to encourage bees so I’ve planted a little wild flower boarder next to the chicken pen with these (as well as adding some poppy seeds) and made a “bee hotel” out of bamboo to give them somewhere to live.
We went for a lovely walk tonight just as it was getting dark, walked up to the river past all the commercial vegetable gardens, its really interesting seeing how they do it on a bigger scale.

New coop

Well I’ve started using the shed before it’s finished! I’ve been making a new coop for the chickens and the shed was the perfect place out of the wind to make it. So far today I’ve managed to make the framework up (all with halving joints) and stain it as the timber wasn’t treated. I made something similar for my mum a few years ago and the design seemed to work well. As it raised off the ground this stops rats from making a home under it, as well as providing the chickens with somewhere to shelter in bad weather and keep their food dry. I should have it finished by the end of the weekend, but I probably won’t move them into it just yet, I might just put it in their pen so they get used to it first. I’m also making it so it’s flat pack for when we move in a few years time.

I have planted my tomatoes, peppers, basil and chilli seeds today, in my windowsill propagator. I’ve probably planted far too many different varieties – I always get carried away!

I’m trying to get as much done as possible in the next couple of weekends as I’m starting a new job in a few weeks time on a massive tower block with an hours drive either side of working from 7 till 6 in the middle of Birmingham, I’m looking forward to the work as it will be interesting but the hours scare me. Hopefully it will mean we can save a bit more money and it means getting our own smallholding will be that much closer.

A very productive weekend

The sun has been shining all weekend and its been great to work outside with just a T shirt on.
For a while now I’ve been thinking about making the chicken a bigger pen as they’ve made the lawn look like a soil and sawdust bomb has gone off, as you can see from the picture. I move them everyday, but every day they dig another hole! So I got my brother to come over (before he goes travelling) to help me make a secure pen in an area of the garden I have just left to weeds.
In a weekend we turned this area:
Into this area (Digging the wire into the ground properly as well to stop Mr fox).

And the chickens seem to love their new pen and here they can dig as many holes as they want! I will build them a new coop in the week or next weekend to go with it, on stilts to discourage rodents, and hopefully make it so we can collect the eggs without going into the pen.

To make sure it wasn’t too much too soon for the poor hen we put their old pen in with them but with the door open, this also means they’ve still got somewhere to sleep. The new enclosure measure 18ft by 7ft so it should be plenty of space for them.
I think I might use the ark for some quails in the summer (might even use the incubator and hatch them out!)
Also planted up four biggish tubs with round carrot seeds and put them in the green house (it seems silly to have it nearly empty except for a few slow growing radishes) so should get to eat those in a few months!