New hens

Welcome to Aggie and Kim the Marigolds, Ginger the Blacktail, Nightshade the Speckledy and Snowflake the Light Sussex.

We have set up a new enclosure for them so they don't get bullied by the Old Girls and they will stay separate for a couple of weeks to get used to us and the other chickens :)

What we did while we had no broadband#1 New Chickens

I'm back! We have Internet again! And phones and email and are back in the land of communication again !

I have just come back from a road trip around Wales, which was great fun. While I sort out the photos and write some posts about it, I will let you see what we have been up to in August, while we were off the communication grid.

We have new chickens!

The above are Seramas, tiny tiny chickens, and these lovely boys are called Biggles, Ginger and Archie.

Ginger

 Biggles and Archie.

 Sweetiepie inspecting the new boys.See how tiny they are, even though they are full grown!

I also got four new pullets; this is Pearl (White Star) with her back to the camera, and Henny ( Rhode Rock) behind

Lilac - a Lilac belle

Blackberry - she is a Copper Black Marans

Sweetiepie and Popper are separated from the new girls for a couple of weeks so we have a lot of hen houses and runs to sort out every day.

Lovely :) I am so happy to have more chickens :) And so pleased to be back blogging!

My henny helpers

 Whenever I step outside during the day I am greeted by this...

When I go out to hang out some washing I am followed...

In fact wherever I go, I am followed! I have constant companions now, either Cassie Cat, or my friendly, feathery hens.

At the moment I am keeping the Ginger Gang seperated from the New Girls - I am still treating the Ginger Girls for lice and I do not want the lice to hop over onto the New Girls!


So I let the Ginger Gang out mid morning and then after lunch I shout...and they all come running.

A treat of some corn gets them inside their walk in run. This is the run I am cleaning out every day and dusting with Diatonaceous earth powder so as to kill off any lice on any dropped feathers. I have also dug out a dust bowl  for the hens in the ground. They love it :-)

 When they have eaten their fill it is sleepy time. One by one, they go over into a patch of sunshine,

And settle down on the ground for a well deserved snooze.

All together, in a huddle of ginger feathers. And slowly, their eyelids droop and they doze off.

And snore!

Meet the new girls!

This is Pearl, she is a White Star.

meet Pepper, the Speckledy

Amber, the Amber ( you can see a trend, here, can't you?)

This is Treacle, she is a Partridge Star.

Meet Marigold, a Marigold. She has already started laying and she is only 18 weeks old. She is very sweet and gentle.

We moved the hen run and house again today, the third time in 6 days.

- see how much damage five hens can do to grass in just 2 days!

Welcome to the new girls...

 Did you guess?

What my birthday present was?

When you saw what Compostman was up to, yesterday? Or have you noticed that there has been a change to my introduction?

 Probably not that hard to guess that my birthday present involved hens :-) New hens, five to be precise.

Tiny Hen looks in at the new girls

From left to right, at the back, a Partridge Star and a Marigold.
At the front,  a White Leghorn and an Amber Star

And this lovely little hen is a Speckledy. She has just checked out the new accommodation!

The names, Pearl, Amber, Marigold, Topaz  have already crossed my mind - not sure about the Speckledy? 
They came from Newland Grange, near Malvern and are 17 weeks old, so will start to lay in the next few weeks. They are all hybrids so will lay a goodly number of eggs for us and all different colours :-)
They are also still making their baby noises on the whole and are very sweet, if a bit shy as yet.

New hens :-)

New hens

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   Now have 5 more hens:-) Collected them on Sunday afternoon from near Hay on Wye.

  They are in as poor shape as the caged ex battery hens were, despite being from a "barn" system - have never seen the sky or grass ( boy, you should have seen the way they tucked into the grass in their run!)

  
  They were baffled by a gust of wind, and enchanted by some straw and twigs - they picked them up and passed them to each other for ages.
  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  Positives are they have good legs and understand about scratching the ground for food.
  
  And they put themselves to bed without help :-) but all in a pile :-( I had to go and spread them out a bit as Titch the very tiniest hen was at the bottom and looked a bit stressed.
  
  Two of them lay down in the sunshine and purred as soon as we put them in the run on the grass. (Hens CAN purr!)  I sat and watched and felt very good about the world.
  
  

Meet the Christmas present hens

I have realised that I never got around to posting up pictures of my Christmas present hens from Compostman...so here they are :-)

We got them from Newland Grange near Malvern, a lovely place with beautifully looked after hens for sale.

This is Pearl, she is a White Star ( a White Leghorn)  and she lays pure white eggs. She is quite flighty!

This is Snowflake, she is a Light Sussex, a rarish breed. She lays pinky brown eggs and is very sweet.

This is Nightshade, a Silver Sussex ( yes, I know she is black!) She is very shy and sweet and spends a lot of time sitting on my feet. She lays pinky brown eggs as well.

My furry familiar Cassie comes with me to see the hens and comments loudly on all that I ( and they) do.

Snowflake and Nightshade are not amused!