Our Pet Chickens

I have kept chickens all my life, my parents kept them when i was a child and i don't think i can ever envisage a time without them. When we moved to our cottage, we put an electric fence all around the garden and woodland area to keep the foxes out and have an iner movable netted area where they ahve a large space to roam - but not get to the vegetables or flower borders. I will introduce our hens below.

We rescued two battery chickens October 2010. I am very passionate about the welfare of chickens and don't like to see any animal couped up for long periods for egg laying or meet production and am so pleased that we have given these hens a new lease of life. As you can see both Ginger and Bunty have lost feathers from being couped up, but now in autum 2011 they have been in a moult and look as they should! It was strange as nether hen really knew how to behave like a hen when we first rescued them. They did not know how to scratch about like normal hens and they couldn't understand what different foods were.

Now they scratch in the woodland all day long, they are the first out every morning and the last in at night. In return lay us two good sized eggs every day. They are so inquisitive and aren't frightened of humans at all and if we go into the pen they will always come to see us, even stand on our feet. Tom is fairly scared of them as they are so tame they aren't scared of him at all which is so funny. He is fascinated but scared! We introduced Tom to the hens very slowly as he had never met one before we rescued him, but now he is very use to them and has never tried to harm them which is wonderful.

Phyllis and Clarrie are best buddies and are much more like pets than relying on them for eggs. They are only very small hens, so I'm sure you can imagine their eggs are tiny. You need a fair few if you are going to cook an omelet! They are great pets though and Clarrie is very tame. I would say a good breed if you have kids and want a few pet chickens.

When we cleared and tidied the woodland when we bought it, we saved some long branches from the few trees we felled for future use. This pile of branches has come in very handy for making a wigwam shelter for the chickens. They still have their chicken house where they sleep and lay their eggs, but this serves as protection from the rain, wind and snow in the winter. Its also a good place for them to hide when the Buzzards come over. There are a breeding pair of Buzzards in our area so they do spend a lot of time hunting around fields. They often land in the garden and woodland and so we felt it important to give the chickens somewhere to hide when they land. Buzzards will kill and take hens and so far this seems to be working well as they were all hiding in there the other day when Nick went in the garden and found the buzzard in the garden. It also looks pretty cool too. My aim is to get some hazel to stick in the ground around the wigwam to see if I can make it grow, but that will be a project for next year.

Tom and the chickens.....

Tom loves watching the chickens, typical collie traits as you can see above waiting and watching. He is wonderful with them though, couldn't have asked for a better dog with the hens, the battery hens are so tame and walk right up to him and often walk over his tail!

Finally a lovely photo of Clarrie posing for me on a tree stump in the garden.