Ok I thought I had better let you all know what has been keeping me so busy for the last week.

We have 6 new additions to our home and have spent the last week making them a home down in the orchard.

We are now the proud parents of ......6 chickens!!!!

We have two Black Rocks (black with a bit of orange on their fronts) called Penny and Henny

Two Warrens (the browny/orange ones) called Peggy and Leggy

and two Silver Lynx (one all white and the other white with some speckled brown) called Clucky and Lucky.

Now that they have sorted out the pecking order they have settled down and all get on well. When you open the hen house in the mornings it is like a scene from Noah's Ark as they all come out in their pairs!

Suprisingly, they are very cute and quite funny little things, Peggy loves to come up to you and undo your shoe laces for you!

Will post some pictures soon, when I get the chance.

E.M

E.M

Oh how wonderful. While I've never had the pleasure of chickens I know people who adore them. 6 OMG, I love their names. I would love to see pictures of them.

Love

Oh, Debbie! I'm 'clucking' with delight! HA! How wonderful, for you AND them, of course! Are you not moving now?....cuz I'm wondering how you'd manage to take THESE guys, too. Yes, their names are so sweet! (and make for easier remembering, eh?) How did you come by them?

I KNOW chickens are great, little beings! (couldn't personally eat them now if you PAID me, though they ended up on the dining table back then) I used to have SUCH fun with them on my grandparents' farm, feeding them the dandelion leaves they couldn't reach from outside their pens (they LOVED those), chasing each other around inside the pen, clucking away to each other, watching their sentience show itself as I poured out my feelings of bliss in being with them. It was great. And they were so healthy and full of zest, back then. So were the piggies, and the cows. I loved them all. I still remember, too, the rooster's crow early in the morn'.....

Can't wait to see pics of the happy crew!

One of my chickens is poorly this morning, little Clucky, she has the sniffles and is sneezing a bit, she is just sitting about, trying to sleep, but every time she closes her eyes someone comes up and pecks her in the face, the little rascals.

I'm hoping it is nothing more than a slight cold, possibly brought on by the stress of moving to a new home, the last few days of wet and windy weather and the fact that she is younger than the blacks and browns. We put her back in the hen house on her own so she can get some sleep and keep warm without being disturbed.

I made up a huge batch of cooked veggies last night to give to them this morning but it seemed they much prefered to peck at the tassles of my scarf than eat the special dinner! In fact none of them liked it, but I guess they have never tasted vegetables before so will keep trying.

We got the chickens locally, they were cram packed in tiny sheds, never let out so will have a nice life here with us.

Still hope to move but being blighted by a nuisance farmer at the moment so are having to haul his backside through the courts first. Some people are hell bent on causing a nuisance just for the fun of it.

My friend keeps a few farm animals so will give them to her when we move provided she promises not to eat them, I couldn't bear that, if not we will take them with us.

Now off to erect the new polytunnel and show 'Farmer Palmer' that life goes on despite his efforts of trying to ruin our life. A big two fingers up to him arrogant bleep, bleep, bleep!

E.M

P.s never had chickens before, wasn't sure even if I was going to be scared of them! Had a nice peck on the bottom from one of them this morning, bless em.

'Peggy and Leggy' I love those names.

I am a city girl so this is a new revelation to me that chickens get colds. I still learn something new everyday..

I'm a city girl too, 'playing' at being a country girl!!!

I didn't know that chickens could get colds either until I happened to spot an article in a gardening magazine, not sure how to spot the difference between colds and bird flu though!!!

The weather has now changed for the better, and all the chickens now seem to have shaken off their sneezes, it seemed to do the rounds through them.

I have to say that even though they are only chickens they do give me a reason to get up in the mornings (as soon as the sun rises, so a bit early for my liking!) but it is nice to be needed, especially to tend to the two younger ones and make sure they get their fair share of the food.

They are an endless source of amusement, Penny (aka Penny Black) and Henny are the big, bossy, noisy ones and always have a lot to say for themselves.

Peggy aka (Pecky Peggy) will peck at almost anything that catches her eye, boots, trouser legs, zips, buttons, buckles, tassles and toggles.

Leggy is quite timid still, but is lower down the ranks so gets special attention at mealtimes.

Clucky and Lucky, although we were told they were the flightiest as they had only been used to being 'factory fed' are actually the tamest and let you stroke them, they are still a little timid and being the youngest are at the bottom of the pecking order so have to try and feed seperately along with Leggy.

As Lucky is at the very bottom of the pecking order she follows me about for protection from the others! She can also be quite cheeky, when I try and put to food in the feeder she jumps onto of the roof only to lose balance and fall off straight into the food container and spilling it all over the floor!

They like nothing more than a game of 'tag' with Ruby, my 5 year old, running after her thinking she had some delicious treats for them.

At night they all take themselves off to bed as soon as the sun goes down, they would cram all 6 of themselves into one small nesting box (instead of splitting up and using all 4 of the nesting boxes) which was quite comical, it was like a game of sardines every night. We have now taken out a part*ition so they now have the two boxes together to make them more comfortable (and in the hope they may actually start to think about laying us some eggs!)

It's nice to smile again and to laugh, if nothing else.

And I know Denis would approve of the new additions (I know he has seen them because I spotted him down in the orchard, near the spot where he used to lay out all last summer).

And that is the chicken news and hopefully later I will get the chance to discuss some other issues, life has been moving very fast with some very interesting developments, leaving me a bit muddled as to what to do and where to go with it all.

Thanking you all for letting me rave about my chickens, I know this isn't a chicken forum but they are helping me see the positives in life once again.

E.M


It's a New Beginnings forum, and they are your new beginnings. Helping you see the joy in life and letting you laugh again, so I think this is the perfect place to rave about them. They sound wonderful. It made me laugh to hear about Lucky and her food!

It was wonderful you got to see Denis again.

Love