Mad chicken woman....and chicken bore!

One of the biggest delights of last year.....and there have been a few....must be the acquisition of my darling girls.
I have never had chickens before and like most people have always really wanted them. It was one of the reasons for moving to a new house to have a big enough garden to accomodate them.

Our four girls were bought as point of lay from a local market. Primarily wanting the chickens for their eggs I was advised to go for the common garden brown french hen!!! I dont have 2 turtle doves or a partridge in a pear tree...but I do have 4 french hens!!!
My OH and I have  4 children between us gave them task of naming them.. Each were to choose names that were chicken related ...so we have

Yoko
Princess Leah (Layer)
Sunny (as in sunny side up)
Drumstick

Leah was the largest and had the most beautiful dark brown and black colouring... she even laid an egg the first day. What a star! Yoko and Sunny were very similar and colour and it was difficult to tell them apart at first....and they were most certainly top of the pecking order amongst this crowd.
Drunstick....welll ...what can I say....runt of the litter, ugly duckling...you name it. Poor girl was definitely the odd one out. Within days all the chickens except her were laying...their wattles and combs were getting bigger and redder. Drumstick wasnt producing and was starting to look more like a turkey than a chicken.
We then had problems when 2 nights in a row she disappeared. Despite the run being closed, wings clipped and no chance of escape...she was not in the hen house! It was obvious she was being picked on by the others but I couldnt work out how in the evening she was missing from the coop and by morning had miracuously reappeared.
A little spying was necessary .....so as it was getting dusk I laid in hiding to watch what was going to happen. There was Drumstick...despite clipped wing,,,,flying to the  top of the coop and then up to the top of the hedge of next doors garden where she proceeded to sleep for the night!!!
Next day I took action.
1..more wing clipping. I obviously hadnt done  it short enough
2 Keep the biggest bully to one side whilst Drumstick got the feed first

That night when she tried to fly on to the hedge it was a bit of a crash landing back into  the run. She didnt try again.
After a few days the pecking order was reversed and calm prevailed. No problems at all since then.

I am happy to say all the girls are very happy, as we are also, as eggs have been in full  production every day even despite the dark days and early nights. I keep them in the run in the morning until the eggs have been laid and then they are allowed to free range round the garden ( and until we managed to block the holes in the fence they free ranged in all the neighbours gardens too!!!)

 Thia is our very posh chicken house...its called a DOODLE HOUSE. We purchased it second hand...its easy to keep clean and mite free as it comes to bits and can easily be washed down and dried in a couple of hours. Despite having 4 nesting boxes there seems to be a preference for them all to lay in one!!!

BE WARNED!!!!
KEEPING CHICKENS IS NOT COST EFFECTIVE IF YOU ARE BEING SELF SUFFICIENT

Unless you are not looking after them very well.....the cost of the chickens far outweighs any gains that you  make in eggs. Hen house, fencing, bedding, mite powder, feed...treats!!! ( they will come running when they hear the rattle of the sweetcorn tin!)

However the pleasure of keeping the chickens and the guarantee of fresh organic eggs is what makes it all worthwhile.

Please dont start to talking to me about chickens!!!!! It drives the OH crazy and he says I am becoming a chicken bore!!!!

If we were being self sufficinet in 2014 we would have starved..bring on 2015!

2015 came into our household with more of a SNORE than a bang!!! I think it must be the first year that we have slept through the bells...and my... was it agood sleep. The wine from La Regie in Verteuil certainly went down well and it was far too relaxing sitting in front of the massive log fire chatting with the host Sebastian. So relaxing that, after eating on our return ,we were so zenned out we slept till 8 the following morning!

So New Year...New start.

I love the start of a New Year...the idea of that first crisp clean page of the diary and calender waiting to be filled with all new adventures. Its like when it snows heavily for the first time and you look out the window at all the clean and white pureness...before cars and pedestrians turn it to a mucky sludge.

New years eve sees me frantically cleaning everything in sight, new bed linen and cupboards replenished. This year was no different and after our hectic year of DIY it was a pleasure to be able to have a kitchen with cupboards to replenish and even a pantry cupboard in order to set up my rows of "just in case" foods and supplies of home made goodies.

My blog this year along with all plans of being "self sufficient" somewhat went down the tube mixed in with tubs of cement, tiles and paint!! I have to admit to giving up a bit on the garden in order to concentrate on the house. Had we been reliant on what we grew to eat then I have to admit we would have been starving.
We dug the garden far too quickly thinking it would be a good idea just to get something growing! Big mistake...the soil was so neglected that very little grew. Along with the massive shadow from an overgrown apple tree the potager was looking very sorry for itself.
The only success was the beetroot..so plenty of chutney....but didnt do enough of it.
Some potatoes but not enough enough to last more than 2 months. Tomatoes were virtually non existant...so no sauces for the next year. Even the courgette plants that usually grow like Triffids faded and died with no fruit on!
The squirrel took every single hazlenut from the trees.

What we did have was lots and lots of apples!!!! There are 6 apple trees in the garden. I was really looking forward to going out every morning to collect fresh apples to make juice. Unfortunately only one of the trees is an eating variety...the rest are cider apples!

I DONT LIKE CIDER

The cows in the pasture behind us profited well from my apple crop and were waiting daily for their afternoon feed.
Next year...although I dont like cider...I will attempt to make some. So..my mission this year is to collect some demijohns and bottles in preparation. Watch this space next year for that.