Matilda and Edna on slug patrol
As you can see the girls are doing well. Their combs and wattles have reduced in size markedly, and turned a much healthier red. I have managed to wean them from the ex battery crumb mixture onto the pellet version, which is a lot less messy, as they seem to love throwing their food around! I give them an occasional treat of live meal worms, and a late afternoon top up of wheat and maize. Greens go down well too. I brought some lanky cabbages back from the allotment yesterday, and they made short work of them.
I let them out of their run each day now for an hour or so, for accompanied excursions of the garden. Today I was teaching them the finer points of Hellebore cultivation, and was impressed by their level of concentration. They also rid the area of slugs, a bonus for us all, because it's a job I hate; they seem to relish it!
Their favourite place to scratch is in amongst the roses, where I have put a lot of leaf mold as a mulch, and as they scratch around in that, they are rewarded by juicy worms and woodlice.
It's remarkable to think that just over 3 weeks ago these hens were living in a barren sterile cage, in a totally artificial environment. Yet, they are adapting to life on the outside and exhibit all the behaviours you would expect to see in a Chicken, I find it hard to understand why they were denied this. How can it be right to cage animals for industrial scale farming. There can be no justification whatsoever!
I am hoping once they have recovered their strength, and feathers, to allow them to free range all day. One step at a time.
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They do attempt snails, but I don't think they know what to do with them. I suspect if they hadnt had their beaks trimmed whilst in cages, they might be better at cracking them open. am pretty sure they would eat them, once they fathom, how.
Thank You. I suspect they will be more lovely in 2 - 3 months time when they have a full set of feathers. Foxes worried me too, we have a sett in the woods alongside the cottage. So far so good, no signs of any attempts to break in the coop or run, and I would only ever let them out if someone was home, which as we noth work from home, is most of the time :)
Karen told me about your hens a couple of weeks ago (she showed me their jackets actually!). Anyway, well done for getting them. They deserve a good home after all they have been through. (I always buy free range eggs). A colleague at work got some young bantams a while ago and brought me in some of her eggs. Although small, they were full of yolk and flavour. Are they coming to Malvern to keep them safe?
Haha! Shall I bring them to Malvern? Do you reckon the old boy would mind if I snuck them in our room? Can't do much worse than I did last year flooding the place! My next door neighbour got very excited about eating a fresh laid egg. He had never had one before, so I took one round that was still warm. He said it was totally delicious.
So looking forward to Malvern again, and seeing you, Karen and Elizabeth x
(PS: only kidding about not reading the blog)
Celia
x
My Garden isn't very large - its about 80 feet wide and 40 feet deep at its widest point. So I divided the 80 foot width into three sections. The chickens are very destructive, not intentionally, but because their natural behaviour makes it so. All that scratching around looking for worms and grubs, doesnt work well with flowers. Shrubs and trees are more tolerant, hence planting fruit trees in with them, they get fertilized for free and can stand up to the hens free ranging! I have added some herbs and meadow plants too.
Hope that helps, Zoe