A little update...

Everyone's getting along well now that the pecking order has been established. The girls now get half a day or so of free range in our paddock when the sun shines and they love it, especially demolishing the honey suckle! The maran's eggs are getting much darker, wether this is the addition of apple cider vinegar to thier water or just a co-incidence I don't know!

Some additions...

We picked up a pair of Silkie Bantams in lieu of Easter eggs today. They're called "Butter" and "Scotch" (Butter is the lighter hen)

Good girls!

Well the girlies all laid today - extra corn for them tonight. Clockwise from top left: Speckled Maran egg (not sure why the pigmentation is like that), Wyandotte egg, Sussex, egg (v.small one today), Wyandotte egg and dark Maran egg.

Another update - Our grandmother is buying another hen for us as an Easter present. The original idea was to get a pair of Bantams but that's been postponed for a month or so, and we're looking for a pair of Orpingtons, Barn Velders, Rhode Islands or Welsummers instead.

Photo session

Roxy, Wyandotte hen.


Some of the gang.


Roger the rooster doing his regal look.


Delia, Sussex hen.

Bed-time

All tucked up last night. 3 eggs yesterday so everyone's laid now.

Another Egg!

This time from Sooty (the Maran). Pic shows the smaller white Wyandotte egg on the left and the dark Maran egg on the right.

More pics.

Everyone settling into the run


Nosy Sparky who wants to know why we keep throwing good horse feed on the floor!

Meet the Chooks!

Roxy, the larger of the Wyandotte hens


Roger, the Wyandotte rooster.


Delia, the Sussex hen.


Sooty & Sweep, the Maran hens.


Ruby, the smaller Wyandotte hen.

Easter Egg!

We have our first egg and the girls haven't even been here 24 hours. It was laid by Roxy (one of the Wyandotte hens).


Roger also managed to wait until 7.15am to start crowing today - v.good!

C-Day!

Thursday 13th April.

A quick trip to B&Q to return the wrong sized bolts and to purchase the last bit of wire is necessary. We decide as the finishing touches will take only a few minutes that we will collect the chickens on the way home anyway so off we head to "Longstone". We're quickly over-awed by the vast selection of chickens available. They range from fabulous "Silkies" who sport white mops atop sleek black bodies to tiny ball of fluff "Bantams" to the amazingly massive "Jersey Giants". We spend a long time selecting out 6 hens and head to the farm shop only to be told we can only buy trios of 2 hens and a rooster. Hmmm, neighbors will love that. After some haggling it's agreed we can have a rooster and 5 hens as long as 3 hens are from the miscellaneous breeds loose in the field. We pick out 2 "Maran" hens in a soft grey colour called cuckoo, a breed which are famous for laying chocolate coloured eggs and a light "Sussex" hen from the field. For our rare breed trio there's much debate over what we'll pick but we settle upon a set of gold laced "Wyandottes". On the way home we give the birds names - Roger the rooster, the wyandotte hens are Ruby (smaller) and Roxy (larger), the Marrans are Sooty (larger) and sweep (smaller) and the sussex is Delia. We get the chooks home, add the finishing touches to the pen and get set to unpack them. We release the Wyandottes first and "Roger" the rooster starts up crowing immediately...Oh god! We let everyone out and soon they settle down to scratching for corn in their run.

Construction continues & choosing starts.

Another trip to B&Q and the last of the supplies are purchased (or so we think) and run construction continues, by the end of the weekend the run is finished bar a 1m x 0.1m section of wire and the bolts on the doors. We also managed to shortlist some breeds we'd like to get which range from Orpingtons to Bantams.

Building begins.

Saturday 1st/ Sunday the 2nd April - a trip to B&Q and Woodies and some Fiesta oragami later (You can fit 2.4m long timber in there) we're €180 poorer and have only bought about half of the supplies we need, the rest will have to wait until our Jeep returns to service as, even with oragami, it just won't fit in the Fiesta. We construct the coop door, the nest boxes and some perches. The hole in the coop/shed floor is mended (Damn horse put her hoof through it). As the rain turns to snow we call it a day.

In the beginnning

Our chicken adventure was fuelled originally by watching "River Cottage" - how cool to have your own eggs, and I'd always liked the idea of chickens as pets. What was one more species going to be to an already admittedly large menagerie? And so it began.

Step one: Convince parents this is a good idea. Easier said than done. Work on the age old basis that if you show enough dedication/determination they give in eventually and clear out our propsed chicken coop (no mean feat!) and draw up plans for the run and nest boxes. Parents give in. V. good. The ball is set rolling.