Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Swanky henhouse

Tell me what you think, honestly. Is it OTT for a henhouse to have leaded windows and checky red curtains?

The black hen got the idea shortly after the red one yesterday so we got 2 eggs within an hour of acquiring the chickens. Sam took the second one to school hard-boiled in his lunch box. Show-and-tell and lunch, all rolled into one.

They laid 2 more eggs today, in the nestbox in the henhouse rather than randomly amongst the bedding plants like yesterday. I say "nest box" - it makes it sound as fancy as the henhouse but in fact it's an old washing-up bowl with straw in it. I put 3 hard-boiled shop-bought eggs in it to give the girls a clue what they're meant to do there, and it seems to have worked a charm. I didn't fancy rummaging about in the borders every day playing "hunt the egg".

5 comments:

Nerd in the Country said...

It looks like you have some happy chickens. Getting an egg a day consistantly is very good.

You'll find that your eggs will have darker yolks soon (if not already). Eggs from chickens that have access to greens (and other outdoor goodies) taste a whole lot better than the anemic eggs available in stores.

Keep up the good work! It looks like you are getting more from your allotment than we are getting from our ten acres (middle of Michigan, USA). The horse, goats, chickens, guineas, and ducks are happy, but the garden is dismal this year. There's still time to plant some things -- as soon as I find that bag of seeds that we bought earlier this spring.

By the way, I picked up your blog from the Chickens-101 list.

Melanie Rimmer said...

Hi, nerd (may I call you nerd?) Thanks for popping by and all the comments you left. I love getting comments, they make my day.

Ten acres with horse, goats, chickens guineas and ducks? Sounds like heaven to me, I'd love to have something like that someday, and we are figuring out how we can manage our finances to be able to do just that. In the meantime we are learning a few of the skills we will need to actually make it work. The fact that we are having the best fun whilst learning, and making new friends, is just an added bonus!

I hope you'll stay in touch, nerd. There's an update most days so there whould be something new to read whenever you check back, and it sounds like you'd be a valuable person to "pick your brains" when we have problems, or want to try something new.

Anonymous said...

Have the chickens scared off your garden birds? I wonder who would win - your chickens or that heron that visits your pond occasionally.

And have you been feeding them kitchen scraps yet? If so, what do they like or dislike.

I wonder if any of your neighbours noticed yet and what their reaction was.

Melanie Rimmer said...

A few of the neighbours have been around to see them and they're all really positive. I have given them some kitchen scraps - carrot peelings and leftover cornflakes and they went down well, although the kids were disappointed when I said "Go give these to the chickens" that they didn't come and eat out of their hands.

To be honest I haven't noticed if there has been any effect on the wild bird population, but the chickens love the area under the bird table, they're hoovering up spilled seed enthusiastically.

Anonymous said...

Go over to LiveJournal and look for landgirl (or possibly land_girl) - she keeps chickens in the back garden too.