Car Parking..........

[whole diary]

[zebedee]

Totally, totally off topic, but how do you find the chickens Mookiemoo?  My wife has been talking about getting a few hens  (fresh eggs and all that) but I just wondered generally how much attention they need?

[Mookiemoo]

Totally, totally off topic, but how do you find the chickens Mookiemoo?  My wife has been talking about getting a few hens  (fresh eggs and all that) but I just wondered generally how much attention they need?

Not too much

You need to make sure they are properly enclosed - so the foxes cant get at them - but once you have a good enclosure, all they need is a shed with straw so they can go in of a night and lay.  Straw will need changing regularly but not too frequently.  Chicken feed is not that expensive - we feed ours twixe a day - the rest of the time they peck for insects.

In summer when we are outdoors more, they become very friendly as they get more attention

[Ptolemy]

I've kept a small number of hens for around 17 years now (not the same ones, obviously - they typically tend to live for around 3 or 4 years, depending on breed) and would definitely agree that they're worth the small amount of effort involved in cleaning them out weekly and feeding and watering once or twice a day. It's advisable to have friendly neighbours willing to look after them when you're away as well. Our hens have the freedom of the orchard in the summer months, and are in an enclosed pen at one end of the orchard the rest if the year, with a hen house and a smaller pen inside that which we can restrict them to so that they can at least exercise a little bit in comparative safety if we know we're going to be late locking them up or away for short periods.

They can sometimes be quite mischevious, and can get under your feet a bit when gardening; and good luck to you if you want to try to round them up and put them away before their usual bedtime at dusk! But they definitely make for very rewarding pets, and add a wonderful extra dimension to any garden with their movement and activity.

[zebedee]

Thanks for the advice - we've been thinking about it for awhile and quite like the idea of them strutting around and obviously the fresh eggs!  Think it will be quite nice for the children to be involved and appreciate the whole food cycle as well (in danger of sounding a bit "good life" there!)  A lady I used to work with kept bantams and reckoned they were great - do you recommend any particular breeds of hen or bantam?

[Mookiemoo]

; and good luck to you if you want to try to round them up and put them away before their usual bedtime at dusk!

I've found that on these occasions - I can skip the gym visit!

Usually only happens in summer when we want to go out for dinner and want them in bed before we leave

As a novice ...... I once spent 3 hours trying to catch the beggers from 4pm onwards (had dinner booked for 7pm an hours drive away in June!)

I learnt - book the table later - the chucks will win in the end

[Ptolemy]

I confess I've only had limited success with this, but a trick my old Dad once taught me was to wave a paintbrush loaded with whitewash in front of each hen. If you can catch their attention, and then slowly draw a white line on the ground in front of them, they will remain there immobilised, staring at the line in an hypnotic state, for several minutes at a time. This definitely does work. The bit I have trouble with is the theory that you can gradually work your way around the whole flock hypnotising them all and then simply pick them up and put them all away. I usually find that by the time I get to the third one the first bird has "woken up". Stupid things.

Sorry... this is way off topic, I know! At least painting white lines on the ground has some sort of relevance to car parks, I suppose.