We have rats in our chicken run
Poultry and rats go together. The rats are attracted by the supplies of food and fresh water. We live in fat rat country. The village is surrounded by farms and studs that are a haven for rats. Rats carry disease, in particular Wiles Disease. This is a killer. The disease is spread through contact with the excrement and urine of carrier rats. A garden pond can attract rats as they need access to water. The disease can infect the tiniest scratch. So I always wear decent waterproof gloves when dealing with the chickens or pond and wash my hands...
read moreHow many eggs does a chicken lay each year?
This desperate string of words comes up a lot on search terms that have led people to our site, particularly at this time of year. People buy pullets in the summer and expect an egg a day from all of them, immediately. We made the same mistake. Our first six months of keeping hens was just husbandry without the egg tithes. We couldn’t understand it. They had a big run, good food, fresh water every day. They also had The Ritz (a hen house version) to roost in and a quiet, snug hay filled nesting box in which to relax and lay eggs. Every...
read moreBottom of the pecking order
Barbie has finally tumbled to the bottom of the pecking order. The chicken that holds this place is the one that does not fight back when pecked. Mrs Boss languished there for four years but has found new status since she has hatched out five guinea fowl keets. She has her own coterie and doesn’t need the companionship of the other hens. They, on the other hand, want to be around Mrs Boss. Perhaps they have heard the cluck that she is now the heroine of two movies on YouTube. Barbie has always been a pretty bantam. She is noticeable as...
read moreRoof top protests and The Great Escape
When we released Mrs Boss and the keets on Sunday evening I expected them to repair to the luxury of the castle to sleep. Mrs Boss was having none of that. She clearly was keen to return to the familiarity of her five star hotel, The Hen House. Luckily, the keets wanted to join her and eventually tentatively negotiated the steep staircase to the communal penthouse bedroom and the snug hay filled nesting box beyond. This was their final roosting space for a couple of nights. There was a problem. Mrs Boss’ old enemy, Barbie, had gone...
read moreThe release of the keets from the castle
Mrs Boss has been looking after the keets for six weeks now. She is a small feather footed Bantam. And the heroine of the Farming Friends – Cottage Smallholder Interblog Guinea Fowl Breeding Event. Mrs B has proved to be a bit of a star, hatching out five keets and tending them well. She also appears to enjoy the attention of the paparazzi. On Sunday we decided to open the castle door and let the keets discover the world of the chicken run. Mrs Boss stepped over the threshold with a coterie of four keets, one was left behind trying to...
read moreMrs Boss jumps: the Svengali Bantam
Mrs Boss is the Bantam heroine of the Farming Friends – Cottage Smallholder Interblog Guinea Fowl Breeding Event. She has been broody more often than not throughout her four summers. As a result, she spends weeks either in the anti broody coop or being bullied by the other hens in our flock. Sara at Farming Friends took pity on this diminutive feather footed hen and sent six guinea fowl eggs to us in the post for Mrs B to hatch out. Within days Mrs boss was living in her own castle within the main chicken run. Suddenly she had privacy,...
read moreMrs Boss The Movie
Mrs Boss is the heroine of the Farming Friend’s /Cottage Smallholder Interblog Guinea Fowl Breeding event. She is now starring in her first movie, which opened this morning on YouTube. Click here to view Mrs Boss and her keets, filmed entirely on location in the hen run with a hand held camera. The keets are starting to make tiny test flights in the handkerchief garden. The fact that they can fly so young has been a worry. When I opened the side of the castle to check their feed and change their water would they fly out? The netting in...
read moreGuest Spot: Henrietta. The chick that we hatched on our Aga by Janet Reading
Eight days ago on June 12, Janet Reading sent me an Email. Her broody hen had died on the nest. The eggs were cold. She moved them to the top of the Aga and wondered what the right incubation temperature for the eggs might be. I keep chickens but I am no expert. A friend of mine had hatched eggs on the top of the Aga so I knew that it could be done. I flew onto the internet and found this useful site. Emails raced back and forth. There was silence until June 16 when she wrote – “We’ve successfully hatched one of the...
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