April in the Chicken Coop

This month in the chicken coop...

... it's birthday time. Our girls were born at the end of April 2012 and came to us in August of that year. We helped them celebrate with an extra handful of corn or two.

Early days with the hens - Pepper in particular looks decidedly young.

... Lemon decides spring is here and has had her first broody bout of the season. Funnily enough we've never had problems with any of the others but for Lemon it was a regular occurrence last year. It becomes quite a battle to persuade her to stop sitting on nothing and literally cool down!

Yes, she's even neglecting to sit on the egg that Frog kindly laid her.

... the sparrows are back. Both years we've lived here we've had nesting sparrows, followed by a dozen fledglings hoping round the garden. They make extensive use of the bird feeder and the girls love pigging out on their discards. We have great fun watching them charge across the garden every time they see a bird.

... and of course it's been a sad month with the loss of Fizzy. The other three have showed no signs that they've even noticed, but we've found it very strange to see them wandering around as a trio.

Read More

And then there were three...

It was a sad day yesterday. I got home from work and found three chickens waiting for me on the back doorstep, not in itself unusual. However when I went outside, started handing out corn and Fizzy was still conspicuous by her absence I began to worry.

I found Fizzy in the coop where she'd quietly left us at some point in the day. While we'd always said that we felt Fizzy would probably go like this one day, the shock was no less. She'd never been the model of a healthy chicken - never laying, slower off the mark, and sometimes sounding a little wheezy - but she was as happy as the others and made us smile just as much. She will be very much missed.

Read More

March in the Chicken Coop

This month in the chicken coop...

... they've not been in the coop. Well they have, but after a winter of using it as a shelter from all the wind and rain they've rediscovered their love of the garden. This has it's ups and downs. It's so much fun seeing them explore again, and they're following us round more. Last weekend Joe was trying to plant out a day-lily we'd bought out of season last year (hooray for the "dead plants section"!), but could hardly dig for Pepper checking the loose soil for worms. We almost had a headless hen! On the downside they now start squawking at sun up for the gate to be opened and we're not impressed.

... they've been laying. We're finally up to speed with three regular layers. Fizzy, as always, has decided that eggs are not for her, but we're getting 15-20 eggs a week from the other three which is more than enough to keep us happy!

... getting muddy. At the start of the month Fizzy started to get particularly muddy. Her feathers were all clumped together and we weren't sure she was going to get on top of it again so we stepped in and gave her a bath....

This was after her bath.... still brown but not so muddy.

She wasn't impressed by the peace offering....

Read More

August in the Chicken Coop

To celebrate the arrival of the hens on The Urban Cottage - and because we've now been chicken keepers for one whole year - we're declaring this to be Chicken and Egg week. Today we're also starting off a new series of chicken related posts called "This month in the chicken coop".

This month our hens have been:

Standing on top of coop proclaiming it's morning. At 5am. Not impressed. Well, Joe's not impressed anyway - Jenny is much better at sleeping through these things than Joe is. There are lots of mutterings of sending them to the big farm in the hills on these mornings; though this isn't as much of a threat as it seems as the farm in the hills is a real place just quarter of hours drive from us where they would be very happy hens!

Frog in her customary "I'm the King of the Castle" pose!

Breaking into the vegetable patch. It seems no hole is too small for Frog who is rather nimble. Reinforcements are now in place on both the gate and the fence.

String stopping the sticks from moving side to side.

Extra sticks running horizontally to fill in the gaps

Starting to moult. Fizzy has started her annual moult - a little early in the year I'll admit, but Fizzy has never been one to do things on schedule.

She's not in a particularly bare phase at the moment,
but you can see all the small new feathers growing on her neck.

And that's about it for August. 

Read More

Who's Who - One Year On

To celebrate the arrival of the hens on The Urban Cottage - and because we've now been chicken keepers for one whole year - we're declaring this to be Chicken and Egg week. Starting the week off - a guide to the girls themselves.

For all our new followers (you're very welcome), and as a reminder for some of our regulars, we thought it was about time we did a who's who in the chicken run. To add a twist we've gathered together the photos we took one year ago, when this was all new and before our garden knew what had hit it - just for comparison.

First up we have Pepper, the bossy boots of the coop and also currently one of the most tame. She's a full size light sussex.

Next up is Lemon. Large and very fluffy, prone to bouts of broodiness and very talkative (read: really loud). She is a full size Orpington.

Moving onto the bantams, we'll start with Fizzy. Fizzy's character is the most changeable. She can be shy or demanding, friendly or scared, top of the group or left on her own. It all depends on the weather it seems.... She's a bantam Orpington.

Finally we come to Frog. Small and unassuming, she's quick and nimble and much more willing to fly than the others. She'll enjoy a cuddle once caught, but good luck catching her! Frog is a bantam Wyandotte.

Read More