Do chickens pine for their keepers?

EGGS! Yes my leghorns in our backyard are still laying. Today I had 3 eggs!

When I was away recently and Graham had to look after them they stopped laying. As soon as I returned home they started laying again?!

Perhaps it`s the way I look after them? I give them a mix of corn and chick crumbs and as well as throwing some on the grass for them I also fill up their feeder. They also have fresh water everyday and I move their ark everyday as well as they get a fresh piece and most importantly I talk to them . It`s ok I can get away with talking to all my animals. I live in the middle of a forest and have no neighbours!

Now I know when Graham sees to them they get fed alright, but he doesn`t often change their water (as I do) and he doesn`t move the ark.

So rather than them missing me, it could have been the better care that meant the supply of eggs. By now they should have stopped laying really for the winter. I`m not complaining though.

Bugle Poultry Show 2007

This Saturday the 28th September 2007 was the annual Bugle Poultry and Waterfowl event held at Bugle Village hall. Graham on the right here and his good friend the Rev Dan Reed became very technical this year as the trophies winners were all computerised! Apart from a couple of little hitches this seemed to work extremely well. Jonathan who created this blog also created a database for Graham using the MS Access program and he seemed to understand what Graham wanted with regards to competitors and trophies won. He hopes that in the future he can use this database further and put all the shows results into it, not only the trophy information, but first he wants to sit down with Jonathan and go through it with him, whenever he and Wendy visit us again.

Here are a few of the birds I rather liked the look of as I was browsing with the girls today:- From left to right… A Lovely crested duck, probably the quietest duck in the whole room, mind you there were well over one hundred ducks entered this year! In fact there were well over 500 entries this year! Rather an amazing feat for a village hall. On the right here are a trio of Silkies.

Below on the left is a silver pencilled pekin Bantam and on the right is a black pekin bantam:-

Here is Lucy (below left) receiving a second for her white leghorn bantam and on the right is a runner duck!

This year we didn`t win a trophy but Lucy won 3 prizes in the raffle! First was a Digital TV box!, then a box of Maltesers and lastly a carving set! Poor Katy didn`t win anything with her tickets but they will share the Digital TV box I`m sure and the both of them soon both ate through the Maltesers!

We are looking forward to competing in next year`s show and Graham enjoys being part of the committee and his role of Trophy Secretary. We hope next year that more people will remember to bring their trophies back for the new winners, because there were a few this year that either forgot them or didn`t compete and we couldn`t track them down.

Cats & Chickens

One of the things that concerned me most when I was thinking about keeping chickens was how they would interract with my cat. Now, my cat is about 13 but shows no signs of slowing down and regularly brings us “little presents” although I would have to say that his prey of preference is small mammals and rodents rather than birds. However, he has always been an only cat and is fiercely territorial with the battle scars to prove it so I was unsure about how he would react to his garden being invaded by three large birds.

I was reassured by everyone I spoke to and everything that I read which told me that a chicken is more than a match for a domestic cat and that the two can cohabit fairly peacefully.

When we first brought the chickens home and installed them in their ark Simpson, my cat, was enthralled with them

“Mummy, you brought me some new toys” and would sit and watch them for hours. After a few days however, when he realised they were firmly shut their side of the wire and no more than a visual entertainment he lost interest.

His interest was renewed when we let them out to free-range in the garden and for the first few days we had them running free I kept a close eye on Simpson. Those first days he made a few half-hearted runs at them and a couple of times I heard some agitated squawking and looked out to see the cat nonchalantly cleaning himself in the middle of the lawn and some ruffled chickens hurriedly distancing themselves.

Now, a couple of months in,  he seems to ignore them in much the same way he ignores the squirrels which run around our garden – other peoples cats are another matter. Literally days after the chickens arrived I noticed a large ginger cat in our garden, a cat I have never seen before. It was as though some notice had gone up “They’ve got chickens at No.57″….the first time I noticed this cat it was creeping up on the chickens in their ark.

What this cat had failed to notice was that Simpson was sitting the other side of the ark watching the chickens through the wire. As the ginger cat stalked up on the ark, Simpson lay in wait and just as Ginger sprang forward Simpson leapt around the ark. Ginger was somewhat surprised and streaked back up the garden the way he’d come.

Since then Ginger has been appearing regularly in the garden and Simpson is not happy about it. They’re his chickens and no other cat is going to come in on his turf. This afternoon I was witness to a highly amusing scene.

At the end of the garden we have an old forsythia bush with a really thick trunk that has fallen over and lies horizontally, the chickens have found this and like to perch on the branch under the shade of the bush. This afternoon they were scratching around underneath the bush when they came rushing out squawking, I went to take a look and could see Ginger underneath the forsythia. I decided to keep a watch and see what happened next. The chickens forgot all about the cat almost immediately and found another patch of ground to scratch around in….Ginger starts creeping towards them through the undergrowth…..which is when I notice further down the garden Simpson creeping up on Ginger.

So there you have Simpson stalking Ginger, Ginger stalking the chickens and completely unaware of Simpson, and the chickens pecking at insects and completely oblivious to either cat. Ginger was about a foot away from the chickens when he suddenly spotted Simpson, the look on his face said it all. On the one hand three chickens which I really want to catch on the other an angry looking tabby….is the reward of one worth the risk of the other? He sat for several moments looking from Simpson to the chickens summing it up before deciding that discretion was the better part of valour and beating a retreat over the hedge.

The chickens meanwhile, hadn’t noticed a thing.

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Tags: cat, chicken, backyard, hens

Chicken personalities

I have only just started keeping chickens, I have three leghorns which I keep in an ark in my back garden. I live in a fairly large town so my posts are likely to be about keeping chickens in a town garden and the things I find out about them. I’m learning as I go as I have no prior experience keeping chickens!

My three chickens have been with me now for about 3 weeks and I have just started to let them “free range” around my garden. Watching them peck around in the grass I’ve begun to observe that they have three very distinct personalities and I can get hours of amusement just watching them interact.

This is Morwenna,

she is a white bantam leghorn. I’m not sure if she is slightly older than the other two but she was the only one to actually have a comb and wattles when I first got them (the comb is the fleshy growth on top of a chickens head whilst the wattles hang down under the chin). She quickly asserted herself as boss and was the first to stare down my cat, Simpson, when he peered through into their ark.She is often the first out of the ark when we open the pop-hole in the mornings and always the first to rush over when you feed them.

The first evening we let the chickens out into the garden Morwenna showed her true inquisitive stubborn nature. She kept hopping onto the patio chairs and from there onto the table. No matter how many times we shooed her away she kept coming back, until finally she plucked up the courage to reach for her real goal….and made an attempt to fly onto the flat roof of our single story extension! We have now clipped her wing and hope that will stop her attempts.

She has also decided that rather than go to bed in the lovely cosy ark I’ve provided for her she will, instead, roost in the shrubbery. When I was first considering keeping chikens everything I read and everything I was told said “keep them in their coop for a few days so they are used to it and then as soon as it starts getting dark they’ll find their way home” Huh!

As dusk falls in my garden Morwenna heads for the branches of the budleiia and once she does the other two follow. There then follows a farcical 20 minutes as I either pick them up and put them bodily in the ark or they jump out of the shrubs and I have to herd them into the ark!

So, having established that Morwenna is the leader she has to have some groupies and the main gang member is Tegen

Tegen is a grey bantam leghorn. Her comb has just started to grow in the last week and she’s slightly smaller than Morwenna so I think she’s a little younger. Like a lot of young girls she is rather under the influence of her older friend. Tegen is very nervous and follows Morwenna everywhere. She hates being left on her own and whilst they are scratching around the garden she will look up and suddenly realise the other two have wandered away and she will run to catch up with them.

Despite being the most nervous she is the noisiest of the three, she calls in the morning when we let them out and also in the evening as they are settling down to sleep. This morning I was sat in the lounge when I heard her calling over and over so I went out to investigate. I wondered if the cat were perhaps tormenting them and had them cornered somewhere.

It turns out that Morwenna had gone back into the ark and was sitting inside (yes, she won’t go in at bed time but she’ll go in during the day – go figure) Tegen was scratching around in the grass and had suddenly realised she couldn’t see Morwenna. She began running up and down and calling at the top of her voice in a complete panic. Morwenna clucked quietly a few times so Tegen went rushing towards the ark. Morwenna poked her head out and then came out into the wire covered part of the ark, Tegen ran up and down outside the wire. She only calmed down completely when Morwenna came out.

Tegen does however go in at night, except she then realises that Morwenna is up a tree somewhere and so she then runs up and down crying out in a panic!

The third chicken is Demelza a red mottled leghorn.

Demelza tends to keep herself to herself, she is something of a loner and doesn’t pay much attention to the other two most of the time. She’s larger than the Tegen and Morwenna as she isn’t a bantam but her comb hasn’t grown in at all yet. Demelza hasn’t made any sound at all yet – she’s the silent aloof type – she’s like the clever girl who keeps to herself most of the time but wants to be noticed by the popular girls.

Demelza has found an empty seed tray in the flower bed underneath the budleiia and likes to sit inside it when they are all having their afternoon nap.

Which is where they all are now – keeping out of the sun.

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Tags: chicken, leghorn, personality, backyard

How to hold a chicken

If you keep chickens as pets, breeding or showing it is very important that you know how to hold them. For me this has been quite a difficult obstacle to overcome as I do have a slight fear of their beaks. My partner Graham breeds and shows Leghorns and has over hundred poultry now and I only have three Partridge Pekin bantams (one of which is in the picture above!). However, even though I have been around chickens for about eight years now, it`s only recently that I have been able to actually pick them up.

To pick them up you have to be quite decisive and just kind of sweep them up! That`s if you can of course! This is easier said than done with some breeds. The Leghorns do tend to be a little more flighty. The pekin breed do tend to be more docile. The more you pick them up the more they will get used to you. I am picking mine up now once a day around feeding time. I pick each one up, smooth them down and then I feed them all, as if it`s a reward for being good chickens and letting me pick them up!

Picking them up and holding them:-

• Hold them down from the top so you are holding their wings and then sweep you other hand underneath them (so your forearm is coming towards them).
• Put your middle finger between their legs and then your next two fingers either side hold the other side of their legs. This is so their legs don`t wriggle, because their claws can be pretty sharp!

• You can then sometimes hold their wings down (so they don`t flap about!) with your thumb and little finger either side.

To be able to hold them with one hand is important if you want to check them over for medical reasons such as mites and also for judging at shows. If you are unable to hold their wings down with the holding hand you always have your other hand free to control the flapping. My cockerel here above is getting used to being picked up as he doesn`t flap so much now!

I still havn`t named my birds yet. I had a Partridge Pekin Bantam before and his name was Rupert (after Rupert Bear! one of my favourite characters!) and he died of old age. I find myself calling him Rupert and Rupy!? The ladies don`t have a name yet. One is fatter than the other though!