Chickens playing out in the garden

Posted by louisa on Thursday 13 January 2011 in chickens | 0 comments

Since it is a nice (if windy) day and Lily-dog was distracted in the top part of the garden barking at the bin men (they’re stealing our rubbish, woof woof woof!), I decided to let some of the chickens play out in the garden this morning. (Because the garden is pretty open at the moment, and there is invariably a dog running around, this doesn’t happen much.)

Mauve, Blue and slowly refeathering Lime – three of the original ISA Browns – were the first batch out – enjoying the good pickings of the raised bed next to the coop, including a rather succulent and long worm! (Photos of Mauve, Blue then Lime & Blue)

Quick new chicken update

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 24 November 2010 in chickens | 0 comments

Quick chicken update: the new girls seem well settled in. Things aren’t perfectly friendly yet but a pecking order seems well established and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as much bullying/intimidation.

The blacker Black Rock (above) – who was initially too afraid to leave the coop – is now probably the outgoing of them, but the other Black Rock is also pretty friendly. The Buff Leghorn is a bit more flighty but that’s to be expected.

The others are still as confident and clucky as ever.

Chickens are *ace*.

Expanding the tribe: four new chickens!

Posted by louisa on Saturday 13 November 2010 in chickens | 0 comments

After thinking about it then not getting around to it for a good while, we finally got around to expanding our chicken tribe yesterday.

We knew we wanted some more variety but didn’t know what – we went to see the wonderful Edward Boothman up near Silsden again, and he showed us all the options — it was very hard to choose!

In the end, we went for two Black Rocks – Edward Boothman is renowned for his Black Rocks so we thought we should get some. They’re photographed here getting up close and personal with Blue, one of our existing ISA Browns:

And we also got two pure breeds, who will give less eggs but are fun – a Buff Leghorn (who shall be imaginative known as Buffy):

And Minnie, the Black Minorca:

Minnie is hiding until the shelter I built them from pallets the other day – glad to see someone using it! Minnie looks unremarkable at this point – about 16 weeks old – but as she grows, her comb will get a lot bigger and redder, and her white lobes will grow huge — she’ll be a very interesting looking bird!