What my chickens gave me for Christmas – The Chicken Run
I’m afraid we’re not those people who buy their pets Christmas gifts. Just… no. Well, to be fair, we have done a few times. but Blue’s rubbish at presents. if you give her a special biscuit or chew or bone she simply carries it lovingly off to her bed and sits with it, casting worried glances at you that she’s supposed to do something with it… but she’s not sure what. Three years ago we got...
Buying cheap chicken food – The Chicken Run
I wrote before about feeding the chickens, and whilst I know it’s entirely possible to feed your chickens entirely from scraps and leftovers and cooked-up mashes it was already clear that the best way forward for us is definitely a decent all-in-one pellet feed available at all times for the girls. This we can then top up as and when leftover scraps are available with ‘afternoon tea’, without worrying about whether...
The Chicken Run – Thinking About Feeding Time.
I don’t know about you, but I never really thought about what a chicken would eat. When we knew the girls were coming, feeding them was one of the things that never really crossed my mind. I mean – chickens just pretty much eat anything, don’t they? Well.. yes.. and frankly that’s occasionally the issue! Once we had decided that they wouldn’t free range in the garden (Mr LittleStuff has spent the last...
The Chicken Run – what happened when it rained…
Chickens don’t like the rain. I mean, they REALLY don’t like the rain. Actually, this should have been No. 11 in the Things I Didn’t Know About Chickens list (I suspect this list is going to continue to grow…). It makes them moody and depressed and grumpy and shouty. And I’m sure they do everything they can to look way more bedraggled than they actually are, just to gain a few more cabbage leaves out of...
Chicken Run – 10 surprising things I never knew about chickens
So we’ve had The LittleStuff Four for over a month now – and we’ve accidentally settled into a chicken-keeping routine. Every morning I’m up first, and I potter down to the coop while the kettle is on the boil and let them out for the day. Blue always accompanies me, and presses her nose to the wire at eye level to the top of the ladder to watch them as they come out (always in the same order, though...
The Chicken Run – Mean Girl and the Henpecked Hen
When the girls arrived with us a few weeks ago, we knew there’d be a settling in period as they adjusted to life as a sisterhood of four in their new home. We understood they had to work out their own little pecking order, and that it would take a few days for them to shake down together. What I didn’t know was that chickens can be Mean Girls! The first day we watched them avidly, and personalities very quickly emerged (NB...