Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

ampersand wrote: »

Well, came back to say I have just finished reading this thread - loved, subscribed.

Welcome to the hen thread ampersand

Great to have you on board. Lots of friendly hen owners on here with some of the best hen names ever!!! Thank you for subscribing!!

Edwink

edwink

fourcandles wrote: »

Ooooh, a chicken thread!! :T

Haven't read through it all yet as I've just come across it before leaving for work, but I'll have a good read later. I'll just give you an introduction to my 5 lovely ladies.

My girls are Alice (speckeldy), Felicity (lavender araucana - always broody, but on the rare occasion when she isn't gives us lovely olive coloured eggs), Jessie (warren), Lily (black rock) and Mabel (Bluebell and boss hen). In the past I have had hens named Kylie, Madonna, Stephanie, Jenny, Janice, Molly..... Right, off to work!

Hi Fourcandles

Great to have you on board the chicken thread!!!

Love the names of your girls by the way.

How many eggs do you average a day? Do you get a surplus? If so, do you also sell yours as others on here do?

Hope we see you again on here. We are a friendly bunch, honestly. You ask the others on here!!!!;)

Edwink

Happygreen

oh, I just found this delightful thread - I have 18 ducks, 4 hens and 1 Cockerel. Each bird looks different (I'm glad so I can tell if one is missing) but only a few have names (like Stupid, Silly, Marble Cake, La Rabiata). I didn't mean to have that many - one summer OH couldn't be bothered to search for nests when I was away and the result was double the number when I came back!
Egg number have dropped again a little bit after high summer (thank heavens) but I have a few friends who are keen.
We ate one of the drakes a few years ago but decided that's not for me, that killing business. If one is ill I get the vet and surplus boys go to a different freezer, not my own I take more care with stopping breeding attempts in their track than OH but he did learn from it!

Dizzy_Imp

Hello all - DH and I are just setting out on our chicken adventure and this thread has been really useful. We are currently preparing a huge enclosure for the hens and have a lovely new coop for them. Once settled, I will encourage them to free-range in the orchard.

We've been advised to put the coop on a hardstanding to deter foxes (and badgers round here, apparently) so there's a bit of a patio in there for them. People are jokingly calling it "Cluckingham Palace" as apparently we've gone a bit OTT, but I've always been very sad at how badly commercial hens are treated and I want our girls to have the best

If it's OK with you guys, I'd love to pop in regularly with questions and requests for advice? I suppose my first one is what type of hen is best for novices (I should add that I am a bit afraid of chickens - they always seem to chase me and flap lots) but I want to get it right x

edwink

Happygreen wrote: »

oh, I just found this delightful thread - I have 18 ducks, 4 hens and 1 Cockerel. Each bird looks different (I'm glad so I can tell if one is missing) but only a few have names (like Stupid, Silly, Marble Cake, La Rabiata). I didn't mean to have that many - one summer OH couldn't be bothered to search for nests when I was away and the result was double the number when I came back!
Egg number have dropped again a little bit after high summer (thank heavens) but I have a few friends who are keen.
We ate one of the drakes a few years ago but decided that's not for me, that killing business. If one is ill I get the vet and surplus boys go to a different freezer, not my own I take more care with stopping breeding attempts in their track than OH but he did learn from it!

Glad to have you on board Happygreen.

Love the names of your hens!!! We have trouble naming some of ours because the rescue hens all look alike. There may be one or two that have slightly lighter feathers so we can name them. The other rescue hens that all look like twins are called "Sweetie".

We keep our 7 ducks as pets. How many ducks do you have? I do love our ducks. They are have a character of there own. Ours all have names because they all look different.

Glad your OH learnt from his mistake. Easily done I suppose.

Great to have you on the thread.

Edwink x

edwink

Dizzy_Imp wrote: »

Hello all - DH and I are just setting out on our chicken adventure and this thread has been really useful. We are currently preparing a huge enclosure for the hens and have a lovely new coop for them. Once settled, I will encourage them to free-range in the orchard. We've been advised to put the coop on a hardstanding to deter foxes (and badgers round here, apparently) so there's a bit of a patio in there for them. People are jokingly calling it "Cluckingham Palace" as apparently we've gone a bit OTT, but I've always been very sad at how badly commercial hens are treated and I want our girls to have the best If it's OK with you guys, I'd love to pop in regularly with questions and requests for advice? I suppose my first one is what type of hen is best for novices (I should add that I am a bit afraid of chickens - they always seem to chase me and flap lots) but I want to get it right x

Hi Dizzy Imp

Lovely to have you on board too!! This thread has certainly expanded this week. That's great because we can share tips as we all have our own ways of looking after our hens.

Love the name of Clunkingham Palace!! All I can say it must be posh where your hens are going to live. They will love you for it forever, I am sure. Well done both of you for putting in the hard work for making their place so nice for them. I am sure you will enjoy spoiling them too like we spoil ours.

I love your idea of thinking of safety for your new hens. We cemented our chicken wire 2ft in to the ground all the way around their coop. So nothing is going to dig around it and get in whilst they are peacefully a sleep at night. So my advice would be to make sure all around the coop on the outside is fox and badger proof. Normally tell tell signs of a fox trying to get in will be newly dug soil/earth around the coop. If you have any soil around it just keep an eye out for that!!!

Yes of course Dizzy Imp please pop in when ever you want to and ask away with any question you have. There will always be someone on this thread to offer you good advice.

Personally I would suggest your first choice of hens should be ex batt hens. As a rule they are quite docile and very quiet. Remember they have had a rough time and have not even seen sun light or felt it on their backs. Quite honestly if you do offer ex batts a home you may have a few tears when you see their feathers returning and when you spot them dust bathing. Just take a moment to stand and watch them. They even wash behind their necks, honestly they do!!! I was in tears when I first saw them bathing. And when you see them sun bathing with their wing feathers stretched out with one leg sticking out lapping up the warmth of the sun you must get your camera out. It is beautiful to watch it truly is.

I am going to be honest here. I was terrified of hens, seriously I was absolutely terrified. When I first got my ex batts I went to Cambridge where Little Hen Rescue had homed the hens until they could find new forever homes for them. They were in a stable, there were around 80 in there all flapping about and squabbling. I made up my mind there and then to go in to that stable and choose the ones I wanted to take home. I did not have to as they said they would go and get the 12 we wanted. But, I said no I am going in, so in I went!! I was terrified and stood there in the middle of them saying I will have this on please and that one please until all 12 were chosen. We drove home with them and one of them laid us a present on the way home. A lovely little brown egg. I cried when I saw it!! My fear got less and less and one of the hens in particular finally took my fear away for good. I will tell that story another time as I have chatted away enough now!! I am just so passionate about my girls.

Finally if you do get ex batts they will all look similar but you will spot some differences in them. More often than not they will be Rhode Island Red Sussex crosses. The Rhode Island Red hen being copper brown and the Sussex being white. So the ex batts are normally Brown with some white on them because the Rhode Island hens is the more prominent one!!

Hope this is of some help to you!!

Edwink x

Happygreen

edwink wrote: »

Glad to have you on board Happygreen.

Love the names of your hen!!! We have trouble naming some of ours because the rescue hens all look alike. There may be one or two that have slightly lighter feathers so we can name them. The other rescue hens that all look like twins are called "Sweetie".

We keep our 7 ducks as pets. How many ducks do you have? I do love our ducks. They are have a character of there own. Ours all have names because they all look different.

Glad your OH learnt from his mistake. Easily done I suppose.

Great to have you on the thread.

Edwink x

Many thanks - the pleasure is all mine ;)

17 ducks, 1 drake (just in case I change my mind re ducklings). Silly, Stupid - occasional collective name, expecially during bed time - and MarbleCake (my daughter's) are ducks. I agree that ducks all are characters, each quite disticlty herself.
LaRabiata is a hen - named as she bites and Fluffy also a ginger hen with fluffy feather on her legs. We had a pet hen that sadly died, her name was SweetPea :rotfl: she followed me everyhere and was the only one allowed into the veg plot.

edwink

Happygreen wrote: »

Sweetpea, she followed me everyhere and was the only one allowed into the veg plot./QUOTE]

Allowed in to the veg plot!!!!!!!! Mine would flatten the lot even if it was just one hen. You are very brave, bless you!!!

We grow veg to and when we are up at the veg plot we get a huge audience of little feathered faces peeping through the boundary chicken wire. I give them pieces of cabbage and spinach to keep them happy whilst we are busy. Today one of our girls ran down the garden with a whole leaf of red chard hanging out of her beak and the others were chasing her down the garden path. It was so funny to watch because the red stalk was being dragged sown the path between her legs. My god that hen can run fast!!!

Do you have any stories about your hens you would like to share with us? Mine get up to all sorts every day. I have lovely memories of the ones we have lost over the past!! Some of them have had so much character they have been amazing to watch!! I even have one who thinks she is a parrot. When I sit and feed them she jumps up on my shoulder and chirps in my ear so I have to put food on my shoulder for her to keep her quiet. They all definitely have a personality of their own. Bless them!!!!

Edwink

Better_Days

What always makes me laugh about my hens Edwink is the way they are unable to keep quiet when they find something tasty to eat - like a delicious slug or a rotting headless vole (I manage to pluck that delight from the beak after some running around!).

No, they make a 'I've got something tasty and you haven't' cluck which of course brings the others rushing over and there is much chasing around like a Benny Hill sketch. If it's something that can't be gulped down quickly then whatever it is changes beaks a few times before someone actually eats it.

Every day the hens get a treat of sweetcorn and spaghetti. The sweetcorn always goes first, then the spaghetti. There will still be spaghetti on the ground but it will be snatched from beaks as someone else's spaghetti is always much more tasty.

There is a surprising variety of vocalisations, I'm sure there is also 'I've got a piece of chopped grape' cluck which is high pitched and excited. I love it the first time I give them chopped grapes. At first they look with suspicion when it is thrown on the ground. Then they try a bit, followed by clucks of excitement and much rushing around to get the most down as quickly as possible.

And there is what I call the 'cluck of despair' when they lose a tasty treat to another in the little flock. And not forgetting the trilling of contentment when dust bathing in the sun.

They are endlessly entertaining and I never tire of watching them pottering around the garden.

We've got 4 ex-batts at the moment, but only two are laying, the other two have retired. Thinking about getting another couple - and the local BHWT have a re-homing day on Sunday 30th August. Tempting.....

Better_Days

Edwink your tale of your hen which sits on your shoulder reminds me of a lovely photo on the BHWT website.
http://www.bhwt.org.uk/information/hen-of-the-month-gallery/

If you scroll down there is a super photo of a lady lying on a sun lounger with a hen roosting next to her. Both at the height of contentment.

Our first lot of ex batts were very friendly and would come and roost on your lap and help themselves if you were eating or drinking anything. One afternoon Mr BD lost half a Belgium bun and had a hen sticking its head in his glass to try out his beer. :beer: