Share the Land

Picture the scene...

Three chickens pecking at the ground where their food has spilled over the course of the last couple of months and a magpie eating their food from their food bell. Surely it should be the other way round? Anyway, when the magpie had finished the food it had a drink out of their water bell and then hopped off...

The cheek of it!

The first picture of you

The girls have very much enjoyed the sunshine today and I thought it would be nice, for you all, to have a new picture of the girls so...

Looking out of the boy child's bedroom window this morning into our neighbours garden (not that we're spies or anything)and we spy a pair of ginger ears poking up out of the long grass. It was a beautiful Charlie Fox and he was enjoying a lovely meal of something - couldn't quite see what it was (and not too sure I wanted to either) but he was having a lovely chomp on whatever it was.

It's quite funny to look out onto next doors garden and see a fox enjoying the sunshine and then look at the back of our garden and see the girls running around in their area. They both seem completely oblivious to each other(which is probably a good thing)but the gorgeous one does get very protective when Charlie is around.

He's gone now (Charlie not the gorgeous one), not sure where but I'm sure he'll be back,but I'm sure he will, the garden next door is a wild animals paradise (aka totally overgrown)and we have seen all sorts of animals including foxes and deer, it's quite nice really.

Stop!

I was wrong about the strawberries, the girls do like them, well Omelette and Yoko love them and Mabel can take or leave them. I had left them in their run the other day as I thought they weren't liking them, but when I went back, they were gone! Gone, gone. As in, nothing left. So I gave them the rest of the ones that I had left for the other birdies and they scoffed them too. The gorgeous one said that they liked it best if you mushed them up a bit but Omelette kept going for my fingers instead of the strawberries so that came to a quick stop!

The egg situation has nearly stopped now, we have gone from 3 eggs a day to one every few days. The gorgeous one thinks that it's just their age and that they're probably just past their prime. Obviously the battery farms keep them for the time when they produce the most eggs and then get rid of them when they start to get a bit older, so their best laying days are well behind them. Oh well, lucky they weren't just here for eggs isn't it? I just hope this doesn't mean that we have a limited amount of time left with them, I'm still not sure how long chickens are supposed to live, some web sites say 8 or 9 years and some say 2 to 3 years. I'm not looking forward to finding out I can tell you...

Today they are enjoying the sunshine again in their part of the garden, with their mate, Robin and earlier they had a new friend who was sitting on their fence, it was a Magpie. It seemed to be sitting on the fence talking to the girls, but I'm not sure they speak Magpie...

Strawberry Fields Forever

I just gave the girls some strawberries, a few of them were on the turn anyway so a threw a few out for the birds and the girls were looking longingly at me so I chucked a couple over the fence for them too. They pecked around at them for a couple of minutes and then walked off. So, what have we learned today? they're not too keen on strawberries - Robin, they're all yours....

Feed the birds

It's been a while eh, chicken fans? Sorry about that, this job of mine is getting in the way of being able to blog on a regular basis!

So, how are the girls? Well, health-wise they seem to be doing just fine, egg-wise, not so much. Yoko is now the only egg laying chicken and the other two are just there to look pretty. Omelette just seems to get bigger and bigger, I'm sure that before too long she'll be able to jump the fence, maybe the eggs that should be laying are building up and she'll explode, then who'll have egg on their faces?

As you can see from the new picture, we now have some pretty flowers to help camouflage the fence. My fingers do seem to have a slight green tinge to them these days as my veggies are also sprouting nicely and having planted them from seed, I feel quite proud (early days yet though eh?). I have also been gifted some potato plants from the wise gardener so we look forward to eating them too.

The chickens sometimes look longingly at the veggie pots as if reminiscing when those pots were just there for them to jump around in and chuck out all the earth (not that was ever the purpose of the pots but that's what they think). I also think that they quite fancy a good peck at the shoots that are showing as well (so not going to happen).

The girls mate Robin is always hanging around with them these days, I guess he knows he's onto a good thing with both protection from the big birds and a constant food source as it does look like most of it ends up on the ground. NB chickenistas, you have to look after the birdies at the minute so the gorgeous one told me the other day. Apparently the ground is too hard and the birdies are struggling to find food so make sure that you all have a fully stocked bird table whilst the weather is so dry. We are able to chuck bread out for the birds again now the chickens are fenced off, we had to stop as they were eating it all and it isn't good for them as it swells too much inside them. This is quite amusing, if a little bit cruel as the girls will watch from the other side of the fence and wonder when some is going to land in their part of the garden. The gorgeous one is too soft and so when chucking out some bread the other day, had to give them a share as well, they can see he's a soft touch I'm sure.