Being God

Fat Boy 1 as a poult

For a moment I AM God or at least a deity of some kind or another. It gives one such a thrill to know that you are, for that moment, the centre of their world.

The bringer of good things: food, shelter, protection.

If they could only articulate in a language I understood I truly believe it would be in praise of me each and every morning. As it is people are beginning to say my chickens make too much noise and if I am not careful the council will be on me about noise abatement.

But the thrill I get when they come flocking at the sight of me. Cackling in delight and anticipation at my benefice. It quite goes to my head. You can see me in my large Blue Down Jacket spreading my arms wide over them all as they peck about in contentment at my feet.

I am the harbinger of life and death.

It is a heady tonic and one which sometimes brings with it headaches.

My biggest headache at present is what to do with Fat Boy 1 and Fat Boy 2 who should have been hens but aren’t.

They are my acolytes waiting out for my return from the school run, rushing up to greet me as I get out the car chortling and squawking and telling me all sorts of things – I prefer to think they are telling me things rather than ordering me about and I am quite happy  in my delusions. They are characters. When I chat to Tatu or J they come and sit on my feet keeping them warm. They follow me about the garden and in reward I lob them worms and other tasty morsels.

But

They are boys and come the spring when the days are longer and the sap starts to rise again they are going to be quite a handful and they are not going to be nice to my poor hens.

So for the good of the whole flock they must be dispatched in some way or another.

Being a God is not easy and for those looking up to the god where the hand strikes must seem a bit random and essentially rather unfair.

It is not the part of the job I enjoy.

But no one said being God is easy…

It's Spring - the first chicks have arrived!

Chicks six hours old

I know it's Spring for today the first chicks of the year arrived. I saw them tumbling out of the barn, chirping and cheeping after their Mum. She is a new Mum so a bit all over the place and not really concentrating on the job at hand. She left a nest of about ten eggs with just four chicks but with a helping hand she should still have four chicks a few weeks from now.
I scooped her up and plonked her in the Nursery, a relatively painless task. I know it will get more complicated as the season progresses but for today I basked in the sunshine (when it shone) and felt rather chuffed. Today I know it is Spring as I have four little chicks to prove it...
The problem I now have is to make sure I get hold or account for every chick for once one lot start hatching you know there are going to be a whole load more. But where do you start. My Chickens are seriously free range and the places they decide to lay their eggs beggars belief! I dread to think what the HSE would think!

Fandango

And for the chicken fancier out there a Salmon Faverolle cockerel (bantam) called Fandango and a rather coy Friesian...

A coy Friesan!

The business of chickens

There I have gone and done it bought myself an egg incubator so I can rear my own chicks. And in that one sentence I have created more angst and pain for my family than in any other single thing I have ever done.

For from now on the chickens are a serious business. Gone is the haphazard way of looking after them now it’s down to science and technology and with it my input has to increase. I am not sure I have done the right thing at all. Going from hobby to business is a big step especially when the hobby wasn’t exactly a full on kind of thing.

My way of looking after the Rookyard Flock has been live and let live to a large degree. I don’t fuss my hens in fact I don’t really look after them at all. I give them shelter and a bit of grain and access to water when it freezes otherwise the hens look after themselves.

I do get a bit panicky in the spring when the chicks start to hatch and I am always on the hunt for them from March through to October rescuing abandoned chicks and raising them sort of under a convenient broody or else finding their own mother and capturing her and putting her in a makeshift pen so as I can at least keep some chicks alive for the following season.

I climb up barns, scurry under perilouis log piles and other bits of farmyard detritus in my quest to rescue these peeping monsters and by and large it works. But I have never gone out to raise my own and bring them on so to speak. Up until now there has always been a broody.

But we have found that chickens are expensive beasts and now that a hen at point of lay can reach the dizzying heights of £20 – 25 per bird for a purebred I have decided the chooks need to start earning their keep and I need to start selling these chickens and their eggs. So life has to get a bit more organised in order for me to do this and I have to look at the type of hens that people want to buy. I have a very funny feeling it is not the hens I have so I will have to buy in hens and eggs to fulfil my customers’ wants, needs and desires.

Everything will have to look more professional and all the hens will have to pass muster. I have images of row upon serried row of identical hens standing to attention with a large fussy cockerel crowing out orders in front of them and it fills me with a kind of dread. 

I've never been that organised!

I think I am a little chicken...

It’s way past my bedtime and I have been making respite homes for poults – young chickens - in the dark. To be honest chickens, especially when they get to that rather ugly teenage stage, aren’t that attractive or even endearing to look at, but for some unknown reason over the last eight or so years I have become rather fond of them.

It took me ages to even touch one and now I am making dens for them in the middle of the night so that they are safe and feel protected and I am not sure that that is really what I should be doing. But let’s just say that when you see six young chickens all covwering in a corner without any shelter because two fat old hens won’t let them in the hut there is only one thing to do…

You know this chicken keeping lark well it just happened. When we came up here in 2001 we just inherited them, a bunch of wild chickens and over time we sort of became attached. We renovated a Victorian chicken hut and they sort of moved in. we introduced some fancy cockerels and they sort of well bred and then we got serious without ever meaning to. Now we have Fat Boys, ones we intend to kill and eat. We have the girls, those we keep for eggs and then we get waifs and strays and I cannot say no even though I know I should. For heaven sake I even had to register with DEFRA as my flock grew to over 50.

I dread to think how much money I have spent on them I probably eat THE most expensive eggs in the country but there is one thing I can say they do taste delicious and I am not the only person who says so – egg connoisseurs from as far afield as Yorkshire and London agree. Even a few individuals from across the pond…

So perhaps I am not as bonkers as I think I am….

Operation Stuffing

I ate my cockerel. And very nice he was too. Usually I have a dilemma every year about my cockerels and the fact I have too many of them but this year we resorted to eating one and perhaps we'll continue.
It seems rather extreme and I totally understand but lets look at it from my hens point of view...
There you are, the sun is shining, you are minding your own business pecking away, scuffling up a bit of dirt and you spot a big fat juciy slug and them BAM!
WHAMBAMTHANKYOUMAAM!
You get up slightly dazed and shake your head a bit, the bugger who just did this to you really hurt when he grabbed the back of your neck with his beak. You chortle your disgust and give him the eye and then as you turn away to compose youself - BAM! It happens again with a different cockerel.
You let out an almighty squawk and make a dash for the barn where you join the rest of the disgruntled sisterhood. From then on in it is a case of slinking along the sides of buildings and peering around corners to see if you can make it to the hen hut where you can lay and egg in relative peace. You long for the grass and the weeds to grow long so you can hide more effectivley. You are desperate to lay an egg but you don't want any attention thank you very much from anymore lecherous young cocks strutting their stuff in the yard.

You plot the buggers downfall. You remember your youth when cockerels actually did more than just mount you. The days when they courted you and helped you find the juciest morsels, the time when they looked out for you. Now you just want them all to die and to leave you alone. Berlimey you can hardly eat without one or another trying to do his stuff without a by your leave! So much for long summer nights huh!
So you get the picture? Too many cockerels equals too many unhappy and exhausted hens. Solution: Operation Stuffing. I used to get someone else in and they would take the boys away now I am a little less squeamish and in the dead of night when all is calm and the chickens cannot see I slink down to the hen hut with deadly intent. Silently I open the door shine a flashlight in to identify my prey then bouff they are out and the deed done with hardly a squawk. The operation is carried out a few more times and tehn I leave. No evidence that the boys have ever existed.

The next day my hens are happy with the chosen few cockerels to stand guard, to treat them as they should be treated....
Top picture shows: 'Quasimodo' the Silkie Cockerel: a born gentleman despite his looks!