Monday 25 June 2012
Dave is away on skipper charter for this week, so I'm throwing myself into creative stuff in the Hut, and, as you may have noticed, finally getting round to updating the blog! But also, because I am intending to be around home as much as possible during the week, I wanted to get the chickens out free-ranging. They're very big now, to have such a small run, and the intention was always to let them roam when they were old enough.
So I made a tent of wire and green netting over the tomato and bean beds, to keep the chickens (and magpies) out, and flung open the doors to the wide world. Dave made the door quite high, to fox-proof the enclosure, so I put a shuttering plank inside and one outside to make a bridge. The chickens were very suspicious of the plank, and took some time looking and twittering before one of them made a run under it to the food, swiftly followed by the others now it was shown to be safe.
I was watching discreetly. After a while, one of the chickens stood on the plank, then stuck a head out, and back in. Out, in. Out, in. Then decided to stroll down the plank. The two left inside were fascinated by this, but couldn't work out how she'd done it. They went up and down inside the run, until one, MegaChuck, sort of scrambled onto the plank by accident. By this time, AstroChuck, the pioneer, had come back in, and she wanted out again, and so hustled MegaChuck out. This left DaftChuck inside, running up and down under the plank twittering anxiously about being left behind.
AstroChuck - named by Dave for boldly going where none of our chickens has gone before - is definitely the brains of the operation. MegaChuck, who is the youngest by a couple of months, is huge. I hope Helen got us the right breed for egg-laying, not for eating.
I now let them out every morning. Astro and Daft are up and over the planks in no time. The first time, Mega got so stressed she just launched herself into the air, flapping madly and made it over the door, landing very nearly on Skits, (who is fascinated by these big flappy things, stalking them round the garden, but looking nonchalant if they get too close. They are significantly bigger than her). But now I let Mega out through the hen-house, it seems less stressful for her.
Dave is away on skipper charter for this week, so I'm throwing myself into creative stuff in the Hut, and, as you may have noticed, finally getting round to updating the blog! But also, because I am intending to be around home as much as possible during the week, I wanted to get the chickens out free-ranging. They're very big now, to have such a small run, and the intention was always to let them roam when they were old enough.
So I made a tent of wire and green netting over the tomato and bean beds, to keep the chickens (and magpies) out, and flung open the doors to the wide world. Dave made the door quite high, to fox-proof the enclosure, so I put a shuttering plank inside and one outside to make a bridge. The chickens were very suspicious of the plank, and took some time looking and twittering before one of them made a run under it to the food, swiftly followed by the others now it was shown to be safe.
I was watching discreetly. After a while, one of the chickens stood on the plank, then stuck a head out, and back in. Out, in. Out, in. Then decided to stroll down the plank. The two left inside were fascinated by this, but couldn't work out how she'd done it. They went up and down inside the run, until one, MegaChuck, sort of scrambled onto the plank by accident. By this time, AstroChuck, the pioneer, had come back in, and she wanted out again, and so hustled MegaChuck out. This left DaftChuck inside, running up and down under the plank twittering anxiously about being left behind.
AstroChuck - named by Dave for boldly going where none of our chickens has gone before - is definitely the brains of the operation. MegaChuck, who is the youngest by a couple of months, is huge. I hope Helen got us the right breed for egg-laying, not for eating.
I now let them out every morning. Astro and Daft are up and over the planks in no time. The first time, Mega got so stressed she just launched herself into the air, flapping madly and made it over the door, landing very nearly on Skits, (who is fascinated by these big flappy things, stalking them round the garden, but looking nonchalant if they get too close. They are significantly bigger than her). But now I let Mega out through the hen-house, it seems less stressful for her.
Freedom!
What about me? MegaChuck to the left.
AstroChuck meets Skits, Skits looks casual ...
Astro and Daft survey the works
'Look chaps, this is how you get back in'
'I'm not fat, just large-boned'
The emptied potato bed - a great place for some really good scrabbling, and even a proper dust-bath, soil and feathers flying everywhere
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