Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

singlehouseholder

[IMG]http://<a href="http://s740.photobucket.com/albums/xx42/efarley/original chooks/?action=view&amp;current=S7002209.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx42/efarley/original chooks/S7002209.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]

singlehouseholder

singlehouseholder

ginnyknit wrote: »

I have one of those inexpensive gazebo type things over my hens and most of the run which keeps out the rain and I can sit next to the run in the shade and tease them unmercifully by eating chicken buttys. The only thing is I have found the soil in the run goes sour after a while so we are having to move the coop and run again tomorrow - think its cos the rain doesnt clean the soil??? Also Bob has dug tunnel A -' Tom' and started on !!!!!! and Harry ( as in the great escape!) supposedly they are dust baths but as you can no longer see her head above the edge of the bath so I think its time for a move!

Has the gazebo weathered a winter, think it'd end up half way down the street here :eek: My coop is stood on a concrete base- they have the wood chippings toscratch on, when they're in the coop that is! I like how your lot have dst baths, I've tried a tray filled with sand, then sand and fine soil, onto compost now but the only thing I've seen any of them doin a bath in was he chiminea, haha, wels came out covered in ash the silly sausage!

Gigervamp

I'm loving the pics.

My girls have scratched out a couple of hollows around the base of one of the trees for their dust bathing spot. When I put them to bed tonight, I noticed that Puss had settled down in one of the hollows!

singlehouseholder

oh ginger vamp, that sounds like chicken ( and cat) heaven!! I do have numerous stumps about my garden. Tree surgeon was chopping down a tree out my back so I asked for it chopped up and he obliged, canny lad. I'm goin to maybe try and strategically place some of the stumps and hopefully they'll take the hint. Worried if they don't do dust baths the lice'll have a party on me little lasses!

Gigervamp

Have you got a spot in the garden that's dry? Where mine have their dust bath it stays pretty dry even when it's peeing down. The tree is a huge pine, probably a couple of hundred years old, so the canopy is pretty thick. We did have grass there, but with the girls scratching around and the lack of moisture, it hasn't grown back. There's just a layer of brown pine needles now!
The grass in the rest of the garden's ok, hubby even had to get the strimmer out today to get the long bits the girls had missed.

singlehouseholder

Under the conifers, I've dug a bit of a ditch and banked the soil up, thought that might be a nice spot, but they really aren't interested, they like to snooze on soil/grass but don't do the baths. Touch wood, my grass is no worse than usual, they only really scratch it up when I hoy grain/sweetcorn on it. There's a small gravelly patch at top of garden which wels n white wyan have had a whale of a time scratching up, hoping with time they'll transform that into an appropriate dust bath!

Gigervamp

Ah. I'm sure they'll get the idea eventually.

HoneyBee83

Ooo love this thread!
I really really want some chickens! Not sure my garden is big enough tho i'd like them to have plenty of room and my cats would get way too excited!!

singlehouseholder

hello fellow chicken lovers! Hope you can help. I'm having a real struggle with my sussex. Went to coop this morning let them all out into run, fine. Went back a couple of hours later after they'd had a chance to get some layers down them, and to let them out to Frange and found a broken egg on the newspaper on the dropping board.:( Now, I don't know if its been stood on by accident and smashed, or , if its been smashed on purpose. Anyway, was doing a bit bonding with the four of them this morning, letting them eat worms out of my hand and noticed the sussex has got yellow on her head and beak, which suggests to me she is the culprit.:( I think it may have been her egg too. The two orig's lay teatimey and did last night, then my part wyan laid her 1st egg (yahoo) earlier today :j. So i'm thinking the Sussex has laid her egg, then eaten it.:eek: She's the bird that I'm having a hard time with, rang breeder a few times, he said she might be going broody, her feathers are all over, he said thats what they do, and they go reet maudy too, which she is. I really don't feel experienced enough to cope with an egg eater, what can I do? Please help.