The girls new run.
Monday 21 March 2011
Girls on Film
We're worried about Omelette again. Over the weekend she seems to have lost her spark and is just standing around with her head pulled in and her eyes shut. When I went out earlier to check for eggs, Mabel followed me and even Yoko was quite quick on my heels, but Omelette stood on the decking, looked, saw I didn't have anything of interest and shut her eyes again. I know she's done this before and pulled herself back together again but it is still worrying. Every now and again she'll wander around and peck at a few things, she even chased a Robin away from her food a moment ago but she's not her usual self. There's been no honking, or general stupidness for a few days and that's just not like her.
We also have had a real depletion on the egg production front, moving from 3 eggs nearly every day, to one egg a day and over the weekend we didn't get any at all! No more egg gifts for people now, sorry about that for anyone who was eggspecting any!!! (I am genuinely sorry about that).
They seem to like the extra room they have in their run now, although obviously they like being out in the garden more, I'll post a picture soon to show you the bigger run, although you can also see how different the middle section is to the other piece, stupid chicken house company! (see previous blogs for rant about them), the craftmanship on it is also pretty poor.
Mabel was on telly yesterday, well, on the computer when we skyped with the bessie in Ohio. They think she's beautiful, well she is actually, as chickens go. She didn't seem to mind being on camera and I haven't seen her lording it over the other two now she's famous so that's good. It was also quite funny to watch the gorgeous one try to catch Yoko so she could be on the telly too, but she was having none of it, obviously camera shy.
Mabel just came to investigate a Starling who was collecting leaves and twigs from the garden and is now scouting around where it was to make sure that all the good stuff was left for her! Not sure where Yoko is, maybe she's going to lay us a nice egg, rather than the jelly one we had the other week. It was really strange, like an egg bubble a bit like I imagine breast implants to look (only the breast implants would be bigger as putting an egg sized implant in would be a bit of waste of time right?). I also think that Yoko has been either sitting, treading or laying on her soft shelled eggs. The other day she had loads of straw on her front and when I went to pull it off I couldn't because it was stuck solid with egg!
I see Yoko now and I'll go egg hunting in a minute to see if she's managed to lay a proper egg, I'm going to sign off here now chicken watchers, honk soon.
We also have had a real depletion on the egg production front, moving from 3 eggs nearly every day, to one egg a day and over the weekend we didn't get any at all! No more egg gifts for people now, sorry about that for anyone who was eggspecting any!!! (I am genuinely sorry about that).
They seem to like the extra room they have in their run now, although obviously they like being out in the garden more, I'll post a picture soon to show you the bigger run, although you can also see how different the middle section is to the other piece, stupid chicken house company! (see previous blogs for rant about them), the craftmanship on it is also pretty poor.
Mabel was on telly yesterday, well, on the computer when we skyped with the bessie in Ohio. They think she's beautiful, well she is actually, as chickens go. She didn't seem to mind being on camera and I haven't seen her lording it over the other two now she's famous so that's good. It was also quite funny to watch the gorgeous one try to catch Yoko so she could be on the telly too, but she was having none of it, obviously camera shy.
Mabel just came to investigate a Starling who was collecting leaves and twigs from the garden and is now scouting around where it was to make sure that all the good stuff was left for her! Not sure where Yoko is, maybe she's going to lay us a nice egg, rather than the jelly one we had the other week. It was really strange, like an egg bubble a bit like I imagine breast implants to look (only the breast implants would be bigger as putting an egg sized implant in would be a bit of waste of time right?). I also think that Yoko has been either sitting, treading or laying on her soft shelled eggs. The other day she had loads of straw on her front and when I went to pull it off I couldn't because it was stuck solid with egg!
I see Yoko now and I'll go egg hunting in a minute to see if she's managed to lay a proper egg, I'm going to sign off here now chicken watchers, honk soon.
Saturday 12 March 2011
Our House
Today, we added the extension of the run for the girls, it has nearly doubled the size of their run and the gorgeous one is very pleased with himself! We had to cobble it together a little bit because of the stupid company that sold it to us sold us the wrong bit (I waited for it to be delivered for 6 months and in that time they changed the specs of the house we bought and so, in turn the run extension. Then they wouldn't change it because I should have known that when I placed my order). the laughable thing was that the company are called "Feel Good", well I certainly didn't!
Anyhoo, we now have a new run, which the girls are trying out now, I think they are liking having so much more space and it does make us feel less guilty if we can't let them out in the garden because we're not in (or it's raining).
We are going to fence off some of the garden for the girls, for a couple of reasons really;
a) They are DESTROYING my garden. I love the girls, you know that, right readers? but I want to have a nice garden where the gravelly bits are full of gravel, not holes where they have decided it would be a good place to tunnel under the fence.
b) They are complete poo machines! I want to be able to go out on the deck without having to watch where I tread for fear of landing in a huge pile of chicken turd, which also stinks.
c) I have a cat on the equivalent of Prozac who has lost her garden too. Now, she was here first so it's a bit unfair really that they have commandeered her garden so hopefully this will mean she will go out there again.
d) I want to be able to have the door open in the summer without having to shoo out chickens, or make a child gate out of a chair (and we couldn't do that now anyway as we have new chairs!)
e) I want to grow veggies, the chickens will want to either eat them or scratch around where they are growing, I know they will!
They will still have a big amount of space to roam around, it'll just be away from the house end of the garden.
I was digging up the ivy at the back of the garden for most of the day and the girls were helping me out. Well, when I say helping me out, they were helping me clear the area of worms and other bugs that came to the surface when I was digging. Mabel ate the biggest spider I have seen in ages, so she became my hero for a little while. I made sure that Yoko got a few extra worms to try to encourage her new feather growth a bit. She has loads of the white fluffy feathers so I'm hoping she might stop looking so scruffy! Don't tell the gorgeous one that you think she looks scruffy though, he gets very protective!
Anyhoo, we now have a new run, which the girls are trying out now, I think they are liking having so much more space and it does make us feel less guilty if we can't let them out in the garden because we're not in (or it's raining).
We are going to fence off some of the garden for the girls, for a couple of reasons really;
a) They are DESTROYING my garden. I love the girls, you know that, right readers? but I want to have a nice garden where the gravelly bits are full of gravel, not holes where they have decided it would be a good place to tunnel under the fence.
b) They are complete poo machines! I want to be able to go out on the deck without having to watch where I tread for fear of landing in a huge pile of chicken turd, which also stinks.
c) I have a cat on the equivalent of Prozac who has lost her garden too. Now, she was here first so it's a bit unfair really that they have commandeered her garden so hopefully this will mean she will go out there again.
d) I want to be able to have the door open in the summer without having to shoo out chickens, or make a child gate out of a chair (and we couldn't do that now anyway as we have new chairs!)
e) I want to grow veggies, the chickens will want to either eat them or scratch around where they are growing, I know they will!
They will still have a big amount of space to roam around, it'll just be away from the house end of the garden.
I was digging up the ivy at the back of the garden for most of the day and the girls were helping me out. Well, when I say helping me out, they were helping me clear the area of worms and other bugs that came to the surface when I was digging. Mabel ate the biggest spider I have seen in ages, so she became my hero for a little while. I made sure that Yoko got a few extra worms to try to encourage her new feather growth a bit. She has loads of the white fluffy feathers so I'm hoping she might stop looking so scruffy! Don't tell the gorgeous one that you think she looks scruffy though, he gets very protective!
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