Keeping hens and ducks chat.

Cheery_Daff · 12 January 2019 at 8:23PM

Hope you're feeling better soon pyxis, The Cough sounds rotten (even if it HAS led you to egg eating!)

By indoors do you mean straight in the kitchen??

that would be convenient

my girls are getting closer :rotfl: :rotfl:

I do sometimes daydream about having them roam about in the house - but then I think of the poop :eek: :rotfl:

It's been windy and vile here today. I've left the door of the run open all day but the ladies have spent most of the day hubkering down in their shelter, only coming out when they heard us come back in the car, or come out of the back door. Poor things don't like the wind! At least they approve of the shelter we made them though - there are plenty of other places they could go but they obviously feel safe and cosy in there :j

Pyxis · 12 January 2019 at 8:38PM

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Hope you're feeling better soon pyxis, The Cough sounds rotten (even if it HAS led you to egg eating!)

By indoors do you mean straight in the kitchen?? that would be convenient my girls are getting closer :rotfl: :rotfl:

I do sometimes daydream about having them roam about in the house - but then I think of the poop :eek: :rotfl:

It's been windy and vile here today. I've left the door of the run open all day but the ladies have spent most of the day hubkering down in their shelter, only coming out when they heard us come back in the car, or come out of the back door. Poor things don't like the wind! At least they approve of the shelter we made them though - there are plenty of other places they could go but they obviously feel safe and cosy in there :j

Yes, straight into the kitchen......... or even straight into the eggbox!

edwink · 16 January 2019 at 2:46PM

welcome Jodles :hello: Thank you for posting. It's lovely to have a new poster on our hen thread. Do you have names for yours Girls?. You are obviously looking after them really well as they are certainly rewarding you with lots of fresh eggs.

How is your egg mountain going Cheery? Have you thought about selling the surplus to just a few friends and family maybe?. Would help towards keeping them wouldn't it? Our friends buy our surplus as they know how well ours are looked after and they know there is obviously a cost involved in their upkeep, so don't mind paying for them at all. Some have said that they wouldn't ask us if we had any spare eggs if we didn't take something for them as they know we have to pay for everything for the girls.

We had one egg laid today but one of the hens got to it before hubby let them out this morning. She had eaten all of it beside half of the shell

We are getting about 2 eggs a week now but not surprising as my girls are old, well in fact very, very old for ex-batts. All 3 of them are over 5 years now and still running about like loonies.

Hubby has take over porridge duties for them at the moment when we have cold days here. Yesterday they had some left over warmed up homemade soup in a little pot on the grass and they didn't leave it alone until the whole lot was gone. Poor little man Cockerel didn't get a look in, bless him and he likes our soup but obviously on this occasion he went without

Thanks for posting everyone. I'm a bit poorly at the moment but have still be reading and keeping up with the thread.

Edwink

Pyxis · 16 January 2019 at 9:43PM

Sorry you're still poorly, Edwink.

Whatever you do, don't risk catching The Cough wot I have still got after 2.5 weeks. Don't go anywhere you might catch it. You really don't want that on top of everything else.

I have just ordered more eggs from my organic people. Very strange. Not like me at all, but probably because of The Cough.

Eggs be easy to cook, and providing I can grate some cheese into them, they don't taste too 'eggy' for me!
I am weird.

I might even fry a couple, when they come tomorrow! Eeeek!
Mind you, they have to be 'up and over' as the Yanks say! :eek:

Cheery_Daff · 17 January 2019 at 9:52AM

Get you eating all those eggs pyxis! Hope The Cough scarpers soon.

You too edwink - can't believe you're still ill, feels like it's been WEEKS! (probably feels longer to you of course). Hope the powers that be know what's up with you and you are making progress xxx

We do give away some of our eggs. I took half a dozen to a friend yesterday - she feeds me my tea once a week so I feel occasional eggs are a good swap

And Mr Cheery has a friend he passes some on to - I suspect he wouldn't take money from her even if she offered :rotfl: We're not very good at this selling malarkey are we?? :rotfl: I do have another friend who has offered cash in the past (although I didn't take it the first time so she might not offer again!) but not seeing her for a couple of weeks now.

My ladies had to stay in their run yesterday as we were both out from early morning til midnight. Not sure they were impressed, but they were cosy in their little house when I checked on them when we got back, and they seem to have forgiven me this morning

they're out wandering the homestead now and will stay out all day today so that should make up for it :rotfl:

Mind you they weren't convinced about the snow this morning :eek: Only a light dusting but still. I gave them some warm porridge, went for a bit of a walk, then let them out of the run when I came back. They all just milled about looking slightly confused, pecking at the hard ground :rotfl: I tried to direct them to some green bits where the sun had melted the snow but they just seemed a bit baffled :rotfl:

Will go and check on them again later, although one just walked past the window looking slightly less baffled so I assume they're figuring it out

It's more like a heavy frost than actual snow - goodness knows what they'll be like if we get what we're forecast over the weekend! :eek:

A friend who lives a couple of villages over who also has hens said last year she spent ages putting straw down on top of the snow as hers wouldn't walk on it :rotfl:

Pyxis · 17 January 2019 at 10:22AM

Snow? Snow? :eek: :eek: :eek::eek:

I must be getting old!

I used to love snow....loved the silence and stillness it brought.

Now, though, I just think :eek: and am scared of slipping if walking, or skidding in the car.

Still, as long as my freezer and fridge is stocked up, I could just pull up the drawbridge for the duration!

edwink · 18 January 2019 at 6:50PM

No eggs still here OR SO WE THOUGHT!! Hubby was out chopping logs and as he got further down the pile he found 4 hens eggs just to the side of the log pile. Put all four of them in water to see if any would float and all but one stayed in the bottom of the bowl. The odd one didn't float to the top but was definitely not sitting still on the bottom so that one we dare not use. The other 3 appear ok, fingers crossed but we will still do a sniff test on them when we plan to use them. The one that was off was probably laid by one of the hens and she hasn't laid again there for a while so that's why the other 3 seem ok perhaps. In fact there was another but it had a few pecked holes in the top so hubby has turned it upside down and left it there so the hen(s) that laid them there won't look about for another nook to lay them in and just lay there again. Told you that they lay wherever they blooming feel like.

(This paragraph should have followed the next one but I cant remember how to move it). Filled all the wild bird feeders up whilst out there so that's that job done for the week too. We now have Long Tailed Tits in one nesting box and Blue Tits nesting in a box, as they do every year, near to the house so the feeders have been going down rapidly lately.

Cleaned out their hotels today plus their new outdoor shelter hubby made for all of our 6 elderly ducks. Didn't take anymore than just over half an hour. Plus washed and filled all the water containers. With two of us on the go out there it cuts the time in half so great that hubby was home from work to help. Both came in frozen and had a big bowl of porridge each with some of the last of our homemade jam. Hens had some warm porridge too on the grass and they scoffed that in no time plus our little man Cockerel got a tummy full too which we were pleased about.

Just loaded up the kitchen stove with logs which has been all day and hubby has got the living room stove ready to light tonight as the weather is dropping here rapidly today. We only have about 6 to 8 weeks of chopped logs and dry wood that is ready for burning left now, so hoping its not going to get too cold where we are. With no gas bill to pay every month we shouldn't grumble but I just hope we don't run out of dry wood to burn this winter because we seem to have got through so much already.

Edwink

Cheery_Daff · 18 January 2019 at 7:40PM

Glad you're warm edwink, and that your cheery cockerel got some tasty porridge, oh, and that you found some eggs too! Pesky hens...

Ours seem to have mostly reverted back to laying in the house again this week. I wonder if it's to do with the time of day they lay? There were 3 eggs already in the nest box when I let them out this morning so no chance to go in the bush...

Snow arrived in force this afternoon. Chickens weren't too impressed :rotfl: I cleaned out their house just before it started, put the cast off bedding into the chicken palace (their outdoor shelter within their run, where they retreat to when the weather is bad, even if the run door is open and they can get out), and topped the house itself up with loads of cosy bedding. They looked fine when I looked in on them when shutting their door.

Not sure what they'll think tomorrow when there's several inches on the ground :eek: :rotfl:

Pyxis · 25 January 2019 at 2:54PM

How is everyone doing?

And how are all the chooks?

Would you believe I'm still not over my cough, although it does get a little better every day, but I only go out when absolutely necessary, and haven't been getting anything done, as not up to it. The house is filthy and there's stuff everywhere.

I hope you have all escaped it!

By the way, can hens get coughs? (Not human coughs, natch! but some sort of avian cough, or hen-specific cough?)

I hope your snow has melted, too! I've not had any yet, touch forest-fulls of wood! :eek:

Cheery_Daff · 25 January 2019 at 3:50PM

sorry to hear you're still coughing Pyxis! :eek:

Chickens all good here. Took a rather amusing video of them coming out of the house to snow on the ground for the first time :rotfl: Hermione was straight out, no messing, heading for the warm porridge. Maud VERY hesitant, Luna barged past her, Mildred pushing from the back but also wasn't impressed when she realised there was snow there :rotfl:

Had to dig a path before two of them would come out of the run :rotfl: Not Hermione though, she was off across the field, up to her little feathery tum in it, not bothered at all

Maud rallied later when she realised she could scrape the snow off the ground with her claws :rotfl: Unfortunately she got so engrossed she scraped up a giant hole in the lawn :eek: I mean, we have 11 acres of fields here and she's made a blithering mud bath right by the path to the house :rotfl:

I confess I decided if they were so keen on digging, they could do some actual work - and fenced them in to one of my raised bed areas to get the grass off :rotfl: Only left them in it for an hour so not much difference made but they've made a start, and I'll plonk them back in there when I'm outside myself at the weekend.

Is it unethical to use your chickens as work horses?! :rotfl: :rotfl:

No sign in a let up of egg production anyway. Four yesterday, and another three today, although one of them was rather soft shelled. Not broken though, it's just weird being able to press in the side of an egg :rotfl: :rotfl:

Keeping hens and ducks chat.

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