The Chicken Diaries #3

For someone who has been used to the graded supermarket eggs, it did come as a surprise to me that four chickens of the same age and breed, sourced from the same farm and now living together in the same environment could produce eggs of such inconsistent size.

I actually love getting my big eggs and little eggs. They are useful for different purposes.

As well as inconsistencies in size, the number of eggs we get each day varies. Whenever we get a day when all four hens lay, it is a cause for celebration (often in the form of a fried egg sandwich). For a while, we thought that none of them were laying. I was worried that they were somehow not happy. Were we not feeding them enough? Did they not like the space we had created for them? Then, my daughter found a nest they had made at the foot of one of the huge lleylandi trees that form our back boundary - a nest full of eggs.

It does give me so much pleasure having the chickens. Despite the need to get up early to let them out and to remember to shut them away safely at dusk, I do not regret the decision to get them one tiny bit. The greatest pleasure is how much my children enjoy the task of going to collect the eggs, especially when they don't return empty handed.

The Chicken Diaries #2

Whenever I talked about 'the girls' in the past, I would be referring to the four daughters from my first marriage. Ranging in ages from 16-25 years old, they are all mostly independent and give me many reasons to be proud. However, they are being replaced. When I talk about 'the girls' now, it will be more than likely that I am referring to the four lovely ladies that live at the bottom of my garden - our chickens.

I wasn't sure how long it would take our little flock to settle into their new environment and start laying so I was delighted when on day one there were two lovely brown eggs in their run by mid morning. Another egg appeared later bringing the total to three. The following day, there were three more. Two of these had been laid in the nesting boxes which now had fresh straw in them to create a sweet smelling and inviting place to do ones egg related business. The third was laid under a tree in a little hollow. I felt ridiculously proud.

My husband had been away on a 200 mile bike ride when the chickens first arrived at our home. His opinion of chickens was that vegetarians should be OK with eating them because they are so stupid they are practically insects (to clarify, that is chickens, not vegetarians!) Meeting 'the girls' changed his opinion very quickly. He was even more excited than I was when he found his first egg in the nesting box.

Some time ago, after we'd first talked about the possibility of keeping chickens, I happened to be in my local Wilkinsons. I love a bargain so I was drawn to the aisle with the large red sign advertising SALE. I found an egg plate for 50p. Even now I am not entirely sure what an egg plate is for. Is it for storing fresh eggs or for presenting hard boiled eggs? I bought one anyway. I used my egg plate to display my growing number of eggs we'd collected.

My little girl, Addy loves fried egg. I promised her one of our special chicken eggs for her tea. She was very excited. Too excited. She became impatient and decided to 'help'. The first I knew of the disaster was when she ran to me with a very worried look on her little face saying Mummy, come quickly. I've made a mess. She was not wrong.

The egg plate had been on the top shelf of my fridge  safely out of reach - or so I'd thought. She had climbed up the shelves inside the fridge to reach it. Miraculously she managed to get the plate and four of the eggs undamaged to the counter. A further four eggs had been dropped in the process. Four smashed eggs oozing their gelatinous gloopy contents over the interior of my fridge and down onto the floor. I could have cried.

I cleaned up the mess and Addy had her egg for tea.

I had intended to use some of the eggs to bake a chicken themed cake to celebrate the arrival of our girls. I love the sunny weather but with the recent relentless heatwave,  it had just been too hot for baking. Instead, the eggs that survived Addy's clumsiness became part of a Friday Night Fry Up.

I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't tell any difference between our fresh eggs and the ones I usually buy from Morrisons - until I realised that the change in diet and living conditions almost certainly haven't had time to have any effect on the quality of the eggs laid. The eggs were quite possibly identical to usual 'free range' dozen that find their way into my weekly shopping basket.

The chickens now have access to plenty of vegetation and I watched with horrified fascination as the one with two good legs scratched deep enough into the dusty dry soil today to find damp earth and peck excitedly at the wriggling things it found there. I do not want to over think how that might have an influence on the taste of my runny yolks but I am intrigued to see if it does.

This morning, once again, there were two eggs in the nesting boxes by mid morning. Addy collected them - VERY carefully!

The Chicken Diaries #1

When our George brought a small animal carrier home after his day at work on the chicken farm, I found it hard to believe that it could contain four chickens. I thought they must be very tiny. We had only asked for three but as there had been four in the 'poorly pen' reserved for the deformed and reject birds that would not survive in a commercial scale flock, we were given a bonus one.

George opened the carrier and one by one in a flapping flurry of feathers, the four chickens emerged. They were not tiny at all. I still don't know how they fitted in there.

I got my first look at the chickens that we were giving a home to.

I had been warned about the defects but it still broke my heart to see the tatty feathers and twisted claws. These birds had come from a good farm producing free range eggs. Those liberated from battery farms I'm sure would have been in a far worse condition. The worst looking of the birds had a neck that looked as if someone had tried to wring it already and failed (prompting my daughter Charis to share the story of Mike the Headless Chicken).

They started to settle into their surroundings and pecked at the food we provided.

During the course of the evening, three of the birds (including the one with the unfortunate neck) made themselves at home and exhibited the sort of chicken-y behaviour I would have expected apart from the fact that they were very quiet. No contented clucking. The fourth bird was a cause for concern. It backed itself into a corner, lay down and closed its eyes. But for the gentle rise and fall of a feathery chest, I would have thought it was dead. The other chickens, rather than having empathy for the weakest member, pecked at her. I really did not expect her to still be alive in the morning.

As the sun set, we knew it was time for the birds to be shut away safely in their house. The number of usable legs amongst the members of our little flock was in short supply. I wasn't sure how well they would cope with the ramp leading up to their night quarters and I had reservations about how well they would cope with the perches inside. We helped them in and as I gently lifted the last chicken from her corner, I mentally reconciled myself with the fact that tomorrow it would be a corpse I lifted out.

The following morning,  I walked down the garden path with a little dread at what I might find. Then I heard clucking. They had been so silent yesterday and now they were clucking. Not loud, enthusiastic clucking, but still clucking.

I opened the door and the wrung neck chicken, who was the only bird to have two good legs, was first down the ramp.. closely followed by another. I had a peep inside and was delighted to see the chicken I had been so concerned about surviving the night, standing tall and strong, though looking slightly hesitant about how to hop down the ramp. Eventually, all four birds were out and scratching around for food.

Later that morning, I went to check on them and was delighted to see two large brown eggs had been laid with a third egg appearing later still.

The chicken house we bought for our new additions to the family has an integral run but it did ot offer much space for the four birds. WIth my husband away on a six day bike ride along the length of the English/Welsh border, I took it upon myself to fence off an area for them to wander free. There was nothing pretty about my boundary but it would do the job until my husband was able to do a proper job. I was so glad I did it. Seeing the chickens exploring the different surfaces and levels within their enclosure was a pleasure to witness. They scratched in the dirt, pecked at the grass and weeds and sheltered from the sun under trees. I'm sure I could see a slight improvement in the flexibility of their impaired limbs and their mobility as the day went on. It gave me hope that they could make a good recovery. I loved watching them preen themselves and stretch out their wings.

The greatest pleasure was seeing how well the chicken I had not expected to see the morning was doing.  Here she is standing tall (albeit on one leg!) :

Here Come the Girls

My daughter Ivy's boyfriend lives on a farm.

One day, Ivy and her boyfriend offered to show my two little ones around the farm.

Dylan absolutely loves tractors and got very excited when he got the chance to sit in an old one. Addy loved the chickens.

Both children were fascinated by the incubator containing chicken eggs in varying stages of hatching. The newly hatched chicks are a sorry sight - bedraggled and exhausted - but before long they dry out, recover their energy and become cheeping balls of fluff.

A lifetime ago when I lived out in the country with my first husband, I kept chickens. I loved the fresh eggs they provided and I really enjoyed having them around. Tragedy struck when two large poodles from a neighbouring farm got loose and had immense fun ripping my lovely birds to pieces. The dog owners compensated us with new chickens but I never felt quite the same about them as I had about the first batch that were small enough when we first bought them that they still cheeped.

I am lucky enough to have a fairly large garden in the town house I live in now with my second husband. We have talked about getting chickens but the timing never seemed to be quite right. The children's delight at the chickens they saw on the farm coupled with an offer from Ivy's boyfriend to supply us with some were the catalysts to galvanise us into action. We bought a chicken coop (which the children seemed to want to live in!) and cleared a space to house it.

All we had to do was wait. Wait until the chicks we had seen hatching were big enough to fend for themselves outdoors. Addy was very excited.

My daughter Taylor's boyfriend is George. George will be going off to Uni in September but for now, to earn some cash, he is working on a chicken farm. We tease him a bit about smelling of chickens and call him Chicken George but I am so proud of his work ethic and the way he has thrown himself into the job. Taylor loves it that he comes round for lunch on work days and has started taking pleasure in having a sandwich ready for him.

George happened to mention to his employers that his girlfriend was getting chickens. Their first response was dump your girlfriend which Taylor did not take too kindly to but the fact is that if we were to have chickens and George was to be exposed to them, there was a risk of infection being passed on. Maybe there is a lingering paranoia after the whole bird flu threat but even a small risk of infection could still have potentially devastating consequences to the thousands strong flock and the livelihood they represent.

George, being a noble and responsible person, could not take the risk.

Taylor did not want to miss out on her precious 'George time'.

There was a solution. Instead of sourcing our chickens from the chicks we'd witnessed breaking free from their shells, we could opt for birds from the chicken farm which would be fully immunised and no threat. However, the birds on offer were the ones from the so called 'poorly pen' - chickens with defects that would mean they stood no chance of survival in the massive flocks required for commercial egg production.

Did I really want deformed reject chickens?

There were definitely pros. The breed was a proven good layer. George could still come round for lunch. We would be giving a home to previously unloved poultry.

In all, that was enough to swing it.

We explained the situation to Ivy's boyfriend. Although he believed the risk of infection to be so insignificant as to be virtually non existent, he sympathised with the chicken farmer's point of view.

Yesterday, George came home from work with an animal carrier. The children were beside themselves with excitement. Our empty chicken coop was suddenly buzzing with life. There were missing feathers, deformed feet, droopy combs and damaged beaks - but we fell in love with each of them at first sight.

I am hoping that with care, the reject chickens will be restored to strength and beauty and hopefully provide us with many fine eggs.  It may take time and they may never be the best looking birds but I look forward to witnessing their progress and am very happy to welcome them as the latest addition to the family.