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Chickens
Our Chickens
Our chickens and Eglu Cube arrived on 23rd October 2009. The bantams arrived on 8th August 2010.
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| Gwennie - our first little chicken and real little sweetie, but can be a minx if she puts her mind to it. | Megan - a bold chicken, first to check everything out and definitely the first to escape. | Blodwyn - the top chicken and the most vocal! Always first to the food. |
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| All three chickens enjoying their temporary drinking bowl | ||
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| Ozzy is learning about chickens! The Eglu Cube plus one run extension in our garden. | The Eglu from the end - the door is big enough to walk in if you crouch - the whole thing is about 4ft high. | |
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| Our first free range outing - Blodwyn checks out the fuchsias | Gwennie shows us she can fly - on the roof of the Eglu | |
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| Two nosy chickens - Gwennie and Megan have a look in the kitchen window from the top of the dustbin | Stephen lifts a reluctant Gwennie back to the chicken run! | |
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| Megan and Gwennie from behind - Megan's legs are crossed :-) | Beautiful Blodwyn showing her lovely feathers | |
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| Lovely Megan investigating the camera | Gwennie and Megan. Gwennie is a bit of a minx, really! | |
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| Megan on the roof of the Cube | Gwennie checks out the anti-escape precautions under the gate | |
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| Gwennie really, really wants to go up. She tried to fly into a bush a few seconds later! | What is this sitting down thing? Is my chicken-feeding person broken? | |
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| Laying siege to the back door. I won't be allowed to leave without a chicky-treat! | Megan on the garden chair | |
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| Gwennie sunbathing - it's a hard life! | What an expression - Gwennie sunbathing | |
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| Megan and Blodwyn on the back of our garden bench | Blodwyn on the garden table | |
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| Building a new base for the cube - first of all the flower bed and tree had to go. Cube in its new position | I forgot to order some parts for the edging, so had to bodge it a bit with cable ties. Here it is with bodged edging and Hemcore base | |
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| The interior, complete with chicken toys - some lovely logs to play on, and a new shallow trug as a dust bath. | While I was building it, Megan had a mud bath. She turned herself into one of the muckiest chickens I've ever seen, but also one of the happiest! | |
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| Chicken Base in position with proper edging and a gravel path round the outside. It is large gravel so doesn't get through the Eglu run very easily, and it is to the same depth as the bedding inside the run. | Chicken Base from the other side - Gwennie is in the background. Just need some nice pansies to finish off now. Also going to make a little gravel path from the back door so I can do it all without getting muddy feet. | |
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| It finally happened - 21st November 2009, we looked in the nest box and Blodwyn had produced this lovely brown egg! | Here she is getting her reward - some grapes! | |
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| I built a suspended mezzanine for the chickens to enjoy from some old wood, a few brass hooks and some garden twine. It is hanging to the right of the cube ladder and door. | On 30th November, all three girls laid an egg - Megan's first egg and one each from Blodwyn and Gwennie! Clever girls. Three eggs on the egg-skelter look great. | |
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| Meggie's huge eggie - on the right. At 88 grammes, the largest we've had from our three girls. The others are normal eggs! | Taken from the upstairs window, this is what they get up to! Scratching big holes in the compost heap. | |
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| They've dug themselves in so far you can only just see Gwennie's tail! | Gwennie decided to explore the shed while I was scrubbing out the hen house - here she is in the tray of garlic I have left over from last year | |
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| Gwennie then decided to explore the food bins in which I store the chicken food. | One little chicken has got herself well stuck behind the bale of bedding I use for the nest box and run | |
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| Eventually she got unstuck by using her wing a bit like an arm to lever herself out. She's still interested in the food bins even though there is plenty of corn in her feeder in the chicken run. | Blodwyn encounters snow for the first time - not really very impressed! | |
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| Megan joins Blodwyn. There's nothing to eat! | Gwennie joins in. It was very easy to get them back into their run. |
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| At last some sunshine in February - and a chance to have an all girls together dust bath! | Don't they look happy! | |
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| All cuddled up together enjoying the sunshine | Blodwyn with her beautiful shiny feathers enjoying the February sun | |
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| Close-up of Blodwyn with my new camera lens | Gwennie's sweet little face in close-up | |
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| Megan taken with my long zoom lens | Megan's feathers taken with the macro lens | |
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| Gwennie laid a wind egg - here is a picture along with some normal-sized eggs | ||
Building the Walk-in-Run |
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| Bob the Builder starts to move the cube from its home | The cube has gone! | |
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| The cube is now on the grass | Bob starts to lay the slabs | |
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| The slabs are nearly all laid | The base is finished - ready for Lewis to build the run next week | |
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| Here is the Walk-in-Run (WIR) Complete with chicken! | The cube fits beautifully into the corner | |
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| Easy to get to from the back door | A palace for chickens | |
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| The view from our back door :-) | ||
| The New Girls - The Bantam Babies | ||
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| The three bantie babies feeding - from the left, Deryn, Dilys and Gwladys. All about 10 weeks old give or take a week at the moment. | Dilys - a lavender pekin bantam and top of the three at the moment | |
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| Dilys again | Deryn - a silver-laced wyandotte bantam | |
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| Deryn again | Beautiful Gwladys - a frizzle silkie bantam. She does have eyes in there somewhere :-) | |
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| Gwladys | Gwladys again | |
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| The first bantam eggs - 25th September 2010. On the left, a massive double-yolker laid by Megan at 122grammes, in the middle a normal sized egg laid by Blodwyn at 78g and on the right two bantie eggs at 22 and 21 grammes - from Dilys! | ||
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| December 2010 - snow again. Blodwyn wonders why the ground has gone all white. | The bantams have more sense - staying in the walk in run | |
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| Somewhere I think there is a chicken about! | ||
New Arrivals - January 2011 |
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| Meet Cori, the Cream Legbar (who should lay blue/green eggs) | And Elun, the Cream Legbar Maran cross, who should lay olive eggs | |
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| Cori and Elun just after their arrival | Cori seems to hog the camera! | |
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| Cori and Elun with Gwladys in the background | Elun | |
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| Cori | Cori with a lovely old-fashioned look to the photo | |
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| Cori is a supermodel - she loves the camera! | Elun | |
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| Deryn is a very handsome chook - silver laced wyandotte bantam | Megan isn't looking her best with her moult, but she is trying to pose for the camera! | |
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| Blodwyn | Gwennie | |
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| Elun is having a snooze in the afternoon | She perked up a bit when she thought some mealworms were on offer! | |
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| Cori is a real poseur, so this photo was given the supermodel soft focus treatment! I love her little top-knot | Cori again | |
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| Cori, showing her best side for the camera | Cori again | |
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| Dear little Gwladys, our frizzle silkie - there is a chicken in all that fluff somewhere, honestly! | Here is little Gwladys - she is such a cuddly little girl | |
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| Deryn, looking very fine | Blodwyn | |
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| Little Dilys, the lavender Pekin - for some reason she didn't want her photo taken today! | ||
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| Cori's first egg and it's blue | Another view of Cori's first egg | |
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| Elun's first egg - olive coloured! | ||