Nobody here but us chickens....

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!

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….