I Love Egg

A friend of mine sent me a link to a silly cartoon video for a song called I Love Egg, which discusses the virtues of egg eating. Here's a link if you want to see it: I Love Egg video on YouTube. He specifically requested that I play it to our chickens and capture their reaction, so I did.

I lined up the song and took my laptop out to the deck. The chickens were all milling about, and of course they were interested in what I was doing, so I thought they would crowd around the laptop and perhaps peck at the keys. I couldn't have been more wrong.

As soon as I hit 'Play', two of the chickens scarpered. Sean Henn was the only one brave enough to take a closer look. As soon as the music got going, she recoiled with a look of shock visible on her beak. Now, if you've ever spent time around chickens you'll know that they always look shocked. Things like daybreak, egg-laying time, feeding time, and dusk take them by surprise every day. But this... this was shock in its most genuine form.

Within a fraction of a second Sean Henn was legging it away from the laptop and the song.

She regrouped with Beulah and Cluck Norris, and the three of them turned their feathery backs on me. The song played forlornly to itself as the chickens retreated to the safety of the water tank.

I think it's safe to say that I Love Egg is not on their Top Ten.

Chickens

I don't have any news. Here are some gratuitous pictures of the chickens just to keep you amused.

Wet chickens

The weather here has been very changeable recently. The last two days were like summer - it was 26c on Monday! - but today is like winter again. It has been cold and wet all day.

The chickens have eaten all the grass from the inside of their run, and with all the rain it has turned into a big mud bath. Their eggs in the nest are all muddy from their dirty feet, and their feathers are all bedraggled. But yet they don't seem too bothered at all!

A chicken update

On Christmas Eve the chickens got a holiday feast of bacon scraps left over from a meal earlier in the week. I'm not sure of the correct approach to feeding chickens meat - is it the done thing? I know they eat insects anyway and they are definitely not vegetarians by choice, but I don't want to recreate the whole Mad Cow problem by giving them something unnatural. (Not that chickens eating pork is ever going to be natural, really. How many chickens would have to band together to take down a pig?)



They have a new extended run which is almost complete apart from some minor work to the original henhouse layout, and seem fairly content in there. It has some bushes and a tree, and did have grass as well up to about a week ago. They made short work of that, so the ground is looking a bit bare, but if it rained more often I'm sure a few things would grow back.

I do feel a bit guilty about leaving them locked up all the time, but I know they've got more space than most of their kind and are very well treated generally. We are getting three eggs a day at the moment, including some with soft shells and some with double yolks. The eggs taste great and have really yellow yolks, so my egg mayo sandwiches for work have become very colourful recently. It's all good.

We got our first eggs!

When I went to let the chickens out after work today, I found these in their coop. Our first eggs! I don't know which of the three are responsible for these two eggs, but hopefully they will all be laying regularly soon.


They're getting a new, extended run tomorrow as well. We are being driven mad by chicken poo all over the path and front step, and it's impossible to keep them away from that area without a fence. After much extended and vigorous debate between myself and Skry, we have hired a man with a van to come and enhance our borders. The chickens will no longer be free-range, which saddens me, but they'll have lots of space to run about in and our doorstep will stay clean. Hopefully the trade-off will be worth it.

A chicken photo for Chris

My friend Chris demanded more chicken-focussed blogging. His wish is my command! But it is nearly dark and the chickens are in bed, so I will have to use the only photo currently on my memory card, which was taken for an entirely different purpose.

They're getting bigger, and bolder. We are having to cope with constant invasions of the living room and attempts at sharing our food, and the front steps and path are a minefield of droppings, but they're a great source of amusement to us as well. And we're training them to keep out of forbidden territory by using water pistols. They learn fast, too; even picking up a water pistol sends them frantically flapping to the far side of the garden. Pity we can't set up something automatic to keep them in line while we're at work...

More chicken stuff

We have been getting used to having chickens in the front garden. They get attacked by cats (bad), and they eat my flowers (bad). They have decimated the sweet peas, and made inroads on the sweet william. 

This is the very bold Sean Henn and Beulah, in the middle of my flower garden. They know that they're naughty!

 

But they are lovely to have around, pecking inquisitively at our shoes, wedding rings, and zips, and making contented clucking noises as they sleep on the doormat. 

Cluck Norris sleeps like the dead, literally. She looks like a dead chicken when she's dozing in the sunshine.

Isn't it the picture of urban bliss?

Introducing: Cluck, Sean, and Beulah

Our chickens have arrived! They are currently foraging for juicy insects in the undergrowth around the trees in our garden.


I now proudly introduce Cluck Norris, Sean Henn, and Beulah. I will say up front that I named one of them, and Skry named the other two. You will just have to guess which ones!

The chicken coop is still a work in progress. Things haven't gone smoothly, and I know it's not the most professional looking building, but it'll do for our three girls until we have the will and desire to provide them with something that'll last for years. This should certainly last through a few seasons anyway before it falls apart, and since it's our first building I think we did quite well, considering.

Skry is still out there building the run. I caught him imitating one of the chickens - or maybe it was she who was imitating him. It's hard to tell!



They don't seem at all fazed by the noise of drilling and hammering, and are quite happy pottering about scratching for tasty morsels.


They're still only babies really, and won't start laying until around December. But you can be sure I will keep you posted as soon as our first egg arrives!