RIP Buff the Chicken

Posted by louisa on Friday 10 June 2011 in chickens | 10 comments

Buff, our buff Leghorn chicken, died overnight last night.

It wasn’t unexpected – every day for the last week I’ve gone down to the run and been surprised that she was still alive.

On Wednesday, after a good few days in isolation with her own protected food supply, she did look a bit brighter but yesterday seemed to fade again. When I checked on her yesterday evening, she looked like she’d gone but when I touched her, her still bright eyes bounced open and she bwarked a bit to let me know she still didn’t like me, no matter how much time I’ve spent looking after her and giving her treats over the last few days.

Buff wasn’t the friendliest chicken, in fact she was a bit of a pain in the bum – not laying for ages and being noisy – but it’s still sad that’s she’s died. She was a pretty pure breed leghorn, with a fabulous floppy comb and her eggs, when she deigned to lay, were pure white.

She’s buried in the wooded bit of the garden.

I really hate red mites

Posted by louisa on Thursday 12 May 2011 in chickens | 7 comments

Last night, our chickens gave us a bit of a scare.

The chickens are generally very good at taking themselves to bed in good time. I think with the exception of a hen or two on one or two occasions when there has been a disruption late in the day, they all tuck themselves away well before dusk. They’re so good that we generally don’t feel the need to check on them every night. (If they are left out, they’re relatively safe in the reasonably fox-resistant run anyway.)

So, anyway, last night. As I was going to bed, I heard a chicken clucking considerably louder than I should have done – she was clearly out of the coop and a more than a little perturbed. Remembering a story from my chicken keeping course, my first thought was “fox!” — had one got into the coop and scared them out? We ran down and looked around but couldn’t see any problems. We put the (mostly asleep) chickens back into the coop and then went to bed ourselves – but I was worried that I’d wake up to the aftermath of a fox attack – a night of anxious dreams. Now though, I suspect the culprit was equally red but a lot smaller.

In the same way the chickens are good at taking themselves to bed, I consider myself pretty good at keeping on top of red mites. I dust the chickens with powder regularly and keep a close eye on the coop – checking & cleaning all the regular spots just about every day. The problem is that I focused on “the regular spots”… When I got down there this morning, the chickens were all mingling in the run as happy as normal but when I started to poke around the coop, I realised there was quite a red mite infestation — in the regular spots, in the litter, in the nest boxes (which hadn’t been a problem before). Not a good situation at all.

Chickens and dogs & cats

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 27 April 2011 in chickens | 9 comments

A few people have asked me – offline and on – about what our dog and cats think of the chickens – and what the chickens think of them.

The dog

I won’t deny it – their relationship was a little fraught at first. Lily-dog was very excited by the hens – and if let into the airlock (the space between the enclosed run and the rest of the garden), she would grunt & nose the chicken wire looking for a weakness. The chickens would squawk and flutter away, which made her even more excited – she doesn’t tend to chase things unless they run from her, then game on. I took her in to meet them a couple of times: I’d have her on a very short leash and she would be fine with them – sniffing the birds and their poo piles on the floor – for a while, then would bolt at them and I would very quickly eject her from the run. I had to make sure she was firmly behind a locked gate before I let the chickens loose in the garden, even in their portable run because she’d nudge at it with her nose. I suspect she’d wouldn’t have known how to undo the feathery wrapping if she had ever got hold of one but I don’t doubt she’d have given it a good chewing to find out.

Lily is generally a very gentle dog though so I hoped that in time, she’d settle down – and she has. There has been a definite “friends not food” shift over the last few weeks – I’m not sure what caused it (familiarity? boredom? being called a bad girl for bolting?) but she doesn’t seem to have any interest in chasing them any more.

A few months ago, this scene would have scared the heck out of me:

But you know why she’s looking at them like that? it’s because they’re in the way:

She wanted to run down the path to the beck and they were hogging the steps – she ran by as soon as the path was clear.

She’ll sit in the run while I’m cleaning the coop out and hardly even deign to look at the feathered ones – just happy to be next to me (there is nothing like a dog with separation anxiety to make you feel like the most special person in the world). When they’re loose in the garden, she’ll watch them more closely – but as if she’s doing me a favour, being a watchful hen-nanny, rather than a predator (this is typical of her – she tattle-tails on the cats if they’re scratching somewhere they shouldn’t).

And what of the chickens – what do they think of the round hound? They divide into two camps – the brave ISA Browns (Lime, Green & Blue) on one side and the more flighty girls on the other. The brave bunch don’t bat an eyelid around her – as the picture above kinda shows. The other four keep out of her way – stay on the other side of the run while she’s in there, or jump up onto a perch – but they’re not freaked out and squawking, which I think helps Lily stay calm too.

The cats

Almost from day one, the cats have been indifferent towards the chickens when they’re in their run or thereabouts. They can’t easily be food and they aren’t a threat, so who cares? When they’ve seen them loose in the garden, they’re a bit more interested but about three seconds after I took that picture, Boron had a bit of a wash and wandered away – not exactly fixated.

(Boron was once feral but once he no longer had to hunt to survive, he quickly gave up that pursuit. He is about ninety-hundred years old now and had to have his teeth removed because of gum problems so I don’t really worry for the chickens’ safety when he’s around.)

Our neighbours have cats too – and one of the them, a giant fluffy tom cat called Daisy, often sits about 6ft from the run, watching the chickens through the fence. He’s got the youthful vigour and muscle to do more damage than Boron but I think he just likes Chicken TV — a few weeks ago, he and his brother suddenly appeared when two of our chickens were loose in the garden. I saw their eyes widen but, like with ours, they realised it wasn’t worth the effort when there was some already bitesized, feather-free meat pieces in a dish in their house. Meat that can’t do this if cornered:

So in summary, the cats & dog couldn’t really care less about the chickens – I’m not sure I’d leave any of them locked in the run with the chickens for an extended period of time but they’re happy enough pottering around the garden together, and I’m happy enough with that.

Do you have other animals as well as chickens? How do they get along?

Pain in the bum chickens

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 20 April 2011 in chickens | 8 comments

One of our hens, Ginger, is broody.

She’s the first one of ours to give in to her hormones and is being a grumpy lady at the moment.

By and large, I’m letting her get on with it – I tried to talk her out of it on the first day but she wasn’t interested in my efforts to cool down her undercarriage. Since then, I’ve just been randomly turfing/encouraging her out of the nest box a couple of times a day to make sure she’s amply fed and watered.

She’s not really the problem at the moment though. The good lady Buff is.

Yes, you Buff.

As I noted when I was worried she might think she was a boy, she’s considerably louder than all the others. The others buck-buck a lot and sometimes announce they’ve laid but Buff randomly makes a sustained noise that is a cross between a quack and a honk. It’s *annoying* and loud. At first, I thought she only did it when she was annoyed with me – if I’d got too close or tried to douse her with red mite powder – but yesterday lunchtime, there wasn’t anyone near the coop and she was quack/honking (quonking?) away for ages. It’s not constant but it’s sustained for a good 30seconds/minute at a time.

While we’ve all been shut inside behind double glazing, it’s not really been a problem but now the weather is glorious and we’re all out on the patio at every opportunity, I’m worried it’ll annoy the neighbours. They’re pretty easy going generally and we get along, so I doubt it’ll annoy them so much that they’ll say anything – but it’s the lower level of annoyance I’m worried about. The niggling annoyance trickle which ends up considerable bigger than the sum of its parts. I’m worried that noisy girl Buff is going to ruin it for the rest of them (and us) so I’m considering proactively giving her away – to someone with a coop further from their house/neighbours, on an allotment or, frankly, someone who doesn’t care what their neighbours think ;)

She’s a pretty girl, a pure bred Leghorn and now that she’s laying, she does an alright trade in pure white eggs – never the largest but a decent size, and about two every three days or so. Even though she’s not the friendliest bird in the world, she doesn’t bully the others by any means so she would be an asset rather than just another mouth to feed. She’s just a bit noisy.

I do worry that I’m not dealing with a problem, just getting rid of it, which isn’t great behaviour on my part. And I also worry that this situation could have been avoided with greater forethought – I should have thought about the noise factor before getting chicken (although, to be fair, it is only Buff making the problem. When we first got the ISA Browns, our immediate next door neighbour actually commented about how quiet they were and how he hadn’t heard them make any noise at all – unlike the couple of chickens who had previously lived next door on the other side). But on the other hand, it seems better to be proactive about it to save problems in the future.

What would you do? Any chicken people been in a similar position before?

No omelettes allowed: my five favourite recipes to use up lots of eggs

Posted by louisa on Friday 1 April 2011 in chickens, cooking, preserving | 16 comments

According to our all knowing spreadsheet, we had 200 eggs from our hens last month. 200 eggs!

Those two hundred eggs equal an average 6.45 eggs a day from the seven girls – not enough to bother selling them at the garden gate but more than enough to keep us going! Our friends and family rarely leave without a box in their hand but we still have a good amount to get through ourselves.

John has scrambled eggs for breakfast roughly every other day, we have egg mayo lunches quite frequently and omelettes (usually either Spanish tortilla or frittatas) feature on our meal plans at least once a week – but we like to use them up in more creative, less obviously eggy ways too.

Here are my five favourite ways to use up a lot of eggs for when you’re bored of omelettes :)

1) Fresh egg pasta – one to two eggs per serving
Despite having a pasta machine for a few years now (a re-gift from John’s mum), we only made pasta for the first time last autumn – it was a lot of fun though and we didn’t know why we’d waited so long! The egg gives the pasta a lovely richness so it only needs the lightest dressing – no heavy ragus need apply. It’s perfect for having with mushrooms sautéed with garlic & chilli, with a little grated parmasan/pecorino & pepper on top. At this time of year, tangles of tagiatelle and ribbons of very lightly cooked wild garlic would toss together beautifully — mmm, am feeling hungry at the thought of it!

2) Chocolate-mocha mousse – an egg per serving
I wrote up this recipe a few weeks ago because I *had* to share. It’s possibly the richest dessert I’ve ever eaten and, trust me, I’ve eaten plenty of rich desserts in my time. Starting with chocolate is a bit of a cheat but makes it really easy to make – about ten minutes melting, whisking and folding in, then a couple of hours to chill in the fridge. As I say in the recipe, if I was served this at a restaurant with a biscotti and a sprinkling of icing sugar, I’d expect to pay a fiver for it.

3) Flourless chocolate tart – an egg per serving
Ok, so this is pretty much the same as the last one, just baked but when things are this yummy, pedantry shouldn’t enter into it. It was apparently one of the hottest desserts around a few years ago, when everyone was obsessed about cutting back on their wheat, so there are lots of recipes around for it – from the very simple to more flavoured ones with almonds, coffee or alcohol – or all three. I like this recipe for the same reason as I like the mousse – it’s a fantastic, luxurious dessert made some simple, basic ingredients – stuff we’re likely to have in.

(And while I was looking for different recipes for it, I found this equally egg heavy recipe for a chocolate cake that uses BEANS instead of flour. Apparently that too is delicious so it’ll go on my to try list…)

4) Lemon curd – 5 eggs to 2.5lbs-3lbs of finished curd
Another one that is surprisingly easy to make. It took me longer to squeeze & zest the lemons than it did to make the rest of the curd – it’s ten minutes on the stove, max and it’s LOVELY.

5) Pickled eggs – 8-12 eggs — as many as you can fit in your jar
I’m not interested in freezing eggs at the moment because we’ve got such a steady supply of fresh that we’d never use the frozen ones – but pickled ones are a different thing entirely. It’s not that we’re pickling them to preserve them as regular eggs – we’re transforming them into a whole new thing. A lovely, sharp tasty thing. By the end of the jar, they’re almost eye-wateringly sharp but we had some with cheese and our sourdough bread for lunch yesterday and the chunks were a lovely, tangy highlight.

If you’ve got chickens, what do you do with all the eggs? Anyone got any favourite egg recipes I should try?