Feeding your chickens.

Variety is the spice of life.

Today I was mugged in my own back yard. However I'll get back to how this happened.

Having decided to render the remains of the beef suet I got for the Christmas puddings I was left with some beef fat crackling. Vegetarians, apologies for the mental image,  it's not pretty but I get such things from a local butcher who humanely slaughters his own animals which are pasture fed, locally raised and free range. I believe in using the whole carcass and not throwing away the bits we're not used to eating. 

Back to the suet crackling. Yesterday we introduced the hens to bacon rind. They behaved as though we'd never fed them before. Chickens eat anything. They have particular fondness for live protein-worms, ants, grubs, butterflies etcetera. We are looking forward to a reduction in cabbage white numbers next season. So we got the suet out of the freezer and put it in the oven on a low temperature (80 degrees C) to render or melt for about 6 hours. At the end of that time we had a tray of melted fat and the crackling. 

This morning (OK this afternoon-I'm still not that well. I didn't drag myself out of bed till after midday and even then not for very long) I chopped up the cooled fatty crackling, put it in a bowl and, taking my life in my hands put my new welly shoes on and opened the back door. 

Within seconds the bowl had been torn from my hands and four chickens were noisily fighting over the bigger pieces. There was clucking, there was pecking there was actual SCREECHING. This morning, even early afternoon it was much colder than recent days. The frost still silvered the grass and chickens need extra calories to keep themselves warm.

I'm hoping this will reduce their tendency to head for the cat food which-I'm starting to discover-does not always come from the most reliable sources, however renowned the brand. A friend of mine who is a packaging expert and has spent many hours in human and pet food factories said that while unpleasant human food factories do have a genuine commitment to hygiene. In his words "Pet food factories? Not so much." oh-oh "I saw 3 different types of cockroaches. When I raised the matter they told me it all cooks in"

I'm starting to question whether I want to used any brand of pre made food especially since the oldest cat (around 10 years old) has, since being placed on a kibble and meat diet, been diagnosed with diabetes. Reading around can be quite uncomfortable-I have to remember that for every thesis there is an equal and opposite thesis but I'm getting the idea that at the very least a diet should be SPECIES APPROPRIATE if you want to avoid health problems.

The plan with the chickens is to use the rendered suet to make home produced fat balls containing seeds, grains, meal worms and other tasty treats to keep them happy in the winter. I have yet to work out whether it's cheaper to make my own but that isn't the only criteria at play.

Whatever we're doing we're doing reasonably right by the chooks. If you compare the above picture with earlier ones you can see the healthy upright red combs on their heads. This is distinctive of vitality and health (as is their turn of speed down the garden at the first rattle of a feed bucket) These bossy, glossy healthy ladies are certainly much happier than the day we collected them by which time they had no doubt improved dramatically since their liberation.

Watch this space.

Happy New Day.

Katherine xxx

Industrial Action from the Chickens

Protests from our feathered friends.

I'm not feeling terribly well at the moment. I either have a chest infection or the one I had before Christmas has upset my airways causing asthma like symptoms. Consequently I've been sofa surfing and relegated to bed for the last couple of days. I don't like it and I get bored. However it would appear I am not alone.

Yesterday the girls dispatched Bob to our room with the information that if we want egg production to continue we are just going to have to consider more access to the house. They have taken to standing at the back door pecking at it if we're inside in view. Alternatively they stand on the conservatory window sill clucking.

Apparently yesterday Bob went out with the pail of meal worms and exciting corn type treats. John jumped on him the moment his arm was out of the door, Henrietta followed suit, Mavis pecked at his feet and Beatrice took the opportunity to dash through his legs and make a chicken-line for the cat food. Thankfully yesterday's kibble was salmon based so no nasty proto-cannibalistic experiences to worry about.

I will digress here a little regarding feeding regimes for chickens. As you will know from previous posts our back garden is no longer the haven of freely growing herbal joy it was in the summer. The combination of AGENT CHICKEN and heavy rain have reduced much of the ground to a Somme like battle ground of mud and stones. As a result we've been supplementing the chickens diet with dried meal worms, spinach and herbs picked from the allotment. I decided to look up recommended feeding protocols and found all the feed sites suggest you only give treats in the afternoon to ensure they get the lions share of their nutrition from the layers pellets. My dearly beloved made the point, To quote Christine Keeler. "They would say that, Wouldn't they" 

(Thanks to Getty Images-I chose not to use that picture of the lady)

After all what benefit is there to the feed companies if your chickens munch happily on free range pasture, insects and kitchen scraps? The feed pellet manufacturers market their feed and refer to other types of nutrition as TREATS. Its not like chocolate. It's all food and it's not surprising if the chickens have a preference for the nicer stuff. 

Please note these are not my girls! There will be more and newer pictures to follow however.

Regarding Christine Keeler: While I was looking for a picture of the famous lady I happened upon an unflattering paparazzo effort of her in her 70's pulling a shopping trolley. Interesting that while I acknowledge is demise in 2006 I could find no such image of Profumo. Rather he received a medal from the Queen in 1975 and attended Margaret Thatcher's 70th Birthday party. As I'm currently prone to a bit of soap boxing  I think on balance I'll stick to looking at pictures of chickens.

Happy Thursday

Katherine

2014 The Year Begins

Or "How the back garden was won"

Happy New Year to everyone. 

Among the many things I do working in retail during the festive season has rather interrupted the flow with this blog. SO time to catch up a little.

There are still bees in the hive. Their numbers have dwindled though the number of tiny corpses on the garden has diminished. We can still see the bees flying around on warmer days and when I hefted the hive a couple of days ago it still seemed heavy. There is nothing we can really do for them till mid February when, if the colony has been unusually active and used it's stores, we may have to feed them fondant. This is a solid sugar based food that rather resembles the ready roll icing you put on Christmas cakes but with a few more nutrients added.

Amazingly we have had very little cold weather so far. Largely in the UK we've had heavy rains and high winds. The chickens and the bees are reasonably well protected and the chicken run remains mud free. The same cannot be said of the garden. I'd just like to tell any new allotmenteers that a more effective way of clearing rough ground than digging or hiring a rotavator is to corral chickens in a confined space and leave them to it.

We had a little help in clearing the back beds from Joel however the chickens turned the soil over meticulously in their search for succulent morsels. Furthermore I am certain that insect life poses no further threat to our crops. Nor do grass or other plant life. More accurately we have a barren wasteland of mud with isolated outcrops of chicken poo. I'm sure that when it drier it will be both fertile and receptive to seeds. So will the chickens. No doubt battle will commence shortly as Bob came home with fruit tree saplings and the first vegetable seeds earlier today.

The chickens are hardly recognisable compared with the scrawny featherless creatures we collected from Brinsley Animal Rescue. They are fully feathered and strut around the place as though they own it. We have discovered a distressing tendency for them to head directly for cat food at the first opportunity. They have also made it clear that Layers Pellets are not their first choice of food. Layers pellets retail at between £13 an £20 for a 25 kilo sack in the uk. They prefer wild bird seed and dried meal worms Dried meal worms retail at around £8 for a 500g bucket. This is, frankly, taking the michael however since Bob says I can't take the lid off his worm farm if the chickens want extra meaty treats that wont cause mad chicken disease we'll have to suck up the cost of the dried worms.

Perhaps our greatest delight has been the sudden urge that first Henrietta and later John had to fly up onto our shoulders. We both felt honoured that our new feathered freinds liked and trusted us enough to come so close. As the garden has turned into a mud bath their urge to wipe their feet on something warm and dry has grown. It has become necessary to don head to foot protective clothing in order to exit the back door because the moment you do one or other of the feathered delights is stood on your lovely clean clothes, skin or hair proudly leaving their mark on you. The other day I was serving a customer in the shop when I realised I had muddy chicken foot prints on my wrist. Luckily I work in a soap shop and the customer saw the funny side.....

I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful festive season and that the new year is treating you well.

Love and Hope

Katherine