Egg-cited! (by sarah)

So we settled the chickens in by virtual of basically leaving them alone then this morning I rushed down to have a look at them, we weren't egg-specting any eggs due to the stress they had been through due to the relocation yesterday etc... But there they where two eggs!

Which I boiled for the girls breakfast - I did soft boiled for Jeany ie three minute dunk in boiling water and then opened straight away where as Mary got a hard boiled egg ie I just took longer about getting it out and knocking the top off!

They both seemed to love the breakfast which is a relief as we find it hard to get Mary to eat much at all 🙂

Jean is now obsessed with the chickens laying eggs - she reckons she can hear when they have done it :/ I think she is just after more egg! Alaric pointed out to her that these eggs will be from the food and stuff they were fed as battery hens and that later ones will be more tasty 🙂

Alaric said the whole thing has been worth it just for the look of glee on my face when I opened the nest box and found the eggs! I am afraid that I am washing them - I know many people say you shouldn't but really just nooooo!

We checked them again around lunch time (due to Jean's pleas that another egg had been laid), there was one more egg 🙂 But no more when I went to check them in the evening and make sure they were all in the hen house for the night. This time the stupid one had worked it out themselves so there was no chicken to have to lift up the ramp - I did however have an escaped chicken when I took the water feeder for a clean and refill. The conversation:

Jean: Mummy you let a chicken out

Me: I know trying to sneak up and catch it

Jean: Mummy that's the wrong way the chicken run is over there

Me: I know

Jean: Oh I thought chickens couldn't fly but they can!

Me: ducking from said chicken I know

Jean: Mu...meee you really aren't very good at this are you

Me: Not helping Jean! chicken walks back into the run

They are supposed to be getting used to the run for a couple of days before being shown the outside world - the others are all scared of the outside - not this one! It is the same on that thinks it is a boy and bosses the others around and it was the only one to escape from the lidless boxes when we were treating them for red mite and it was the first one up the ramp when we introduced them to the run - I think we have Chicken Genius here - it is the one called Felix! Though we have been calling it The Bossy One if I am honest!

First full day with chickens = success, I even tied a lettuce up for them to peak at - they don't seem to have noticed it yet though 🙁

Sorry Gromit We Are Not Going To Find You All – you’ve been Usurped by Chicken Run! (by sarah)

So this weekend was going to be the final drive to find Gromit in and around Bristol - we have enjoyed the trail muchly over the summer but then it just was not to be - instead I got asked a) to perform Saturday at 1 o'clock and b) there were some chickens avalible for rescuing/retiring from intensive commercial farming. Plus there is a possible chance of getting to talk to the allotment people on Sunday - so sadly and with a heavy heart no more Gromits 🙁

But still - CHICKENS!

The hen house that me and Alaric assembled last weekend was hefted into place Friday night after Thursday and Friday were spent burning rubbish (including that giant damn building bag of tree bits the previous people had left on the workshop roof and which was now dumped right were the back of the run needed to go!). My garden doesn't look pretty at the moment but it has been very productive!

This is going to be within the big fenced off area we will have the animals in most of the time though once they are settled they like the rabbit will get to bounce or flutter around the garden! But for now we have the chicken run and it even has a little ramp!

So anyway I went and watched poetry whilst Al and the girls went to pick up the supplies we needed such as feed and grit (for the chickens gullet - they have no teeth so they swallow stones to help grind their food up). Several people were coming to see me read/perform including Al and the girls but I ended up going on early and so they missed it - boo hiss! But on the other hand at least two radom shoppers stopped for the entirety of my 20 minute set 🙂 I always count that as a win!

Then we headed off to go and pick up our chickens from nearish Cirencester - it was a farm where the rescue chickens had been delivered that morning, whilst there Mary befriended the farm dog! So the fat hen has been called Doggie - as featured above.

On the way home I kept winding Alaric up with chicken impressions and Jean was convinced they were laying eggs in the book - we collected them in my old paper work boxes which were just the right size for two chickens each with handy air wholes - they kept the spare box we had bought just in case as they make such handy chicken carriers!

At home Jeany removed the leds (after cats had been turfed!), they all just sat there with half their feathers missing, not realising her was a chance for escape.

Jean's one is called Lilly after the fictional character Harry Potter's Mother.

The remaining two hens are being called after Chicken Scheme programmers - so we have Felix and Mario!

Well eventually when Alaric was applying the red mite powder Felix who was the first to stick her neck out of the box, looked around went 'my god what are you doing to me!' and fluttered out of the box - she was the only one to do so - then she promptly pooed on my shoe which was sitting by the back door!

We popped her back in the box and took them down to the chicken run!

Felix was the first one to work out there was a ramp and was busy bossing all the others about!

Initially they were only interested in all the grit and not the food or water. Mary is very happy there is a chick'n house and has learnt that they are not ducks! But mainly has been restrained from prodding and poking!

Lilly (Jean's chicken) is a bit dim and was found forlorn at the base of the ramp at bed time oblivious as to what at happened to the other chickens - I had to pick her up and put her in the hen house!

We got the chickens from The British Hen Trust and I was sad to see the state of the chickens - but this is nothing compared to how chickens used to be at the end of a commercial laying career and I think the commercial farmers need to be thanked for at least allowing them to be retired. I think the issue lays in the commercial pressures on the farmers - it's bizar that in a land were we end up with so much wasted food there are people struggling to feed their families and animals being forced to over produce :/ I myself have found times when we could not afford anything other than the cheapest eggs and sometimes not even that :/ I see how many get broken in the supermarkets too. I don't know how to solve the issue as I am privlaged to be able to keep the chickens.

Anyway we finally have our birds - no ducks yet - need to assess how much space the chickens actually need and how noisy etc... they are - especially as ducks take up more space! (Goes off and picks up her book on keeping urban bees).

Poetry In Store and Well Versed (by sarah)

Just a quick note to say that I am performing/reading at the Waterstones in Cheltenham on this Saturday (7th of September 2013) at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon - before me are a lovely bunch of poets reading. The even lasts from 11 till 2 and there is a Costa coffee in the shop too for the coffee fiends 🙂

Last night I went to Well Versed at the Muffin Man - I took some blurry pictures on my little touch pad but haven't worked out how to get them onto here yet! It was a fantastic night - the cafe was jam packed with audience! And there was a rich variety of poetry types there, the diversity of works being read gave the event a strong vibrancy and I discovered some poets I hadn't heard before.

The next one is in October which I shall be reading at 🙂

I've been a bit slack with my poetry recently having gotten the prose writing bug again but in the new year I should have a poetry collection coming out so watch this space (or my poetry and music blog). Also October will see the Launch Party of The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry but more on that later!

Both of the poetry events are run by The Cheltenham Poetry Festival 🙂