Crazy Things You Can Buy For Your Chicken

I don't believe it!

After joking yesterday about taking chickens for a walk on a lead I was persuaded by a friend to do a web search for chicken leads. I can honestly say that I have never been more surprised by the variety of bizarre merchandise that is available in such a niche area.

We can start with THE CHICKEN DIAPER. Nappies for chooks. Seriously such things exist. Not only that but they are available in a rainbow of colours and prints. Not just, as you might think, the various colours of chicken feathers. Oh no, chicken nappies are available in floral prints, plain colours and many quirky prints including skulls for those of you with gothic tendencies or a need to honour Alexander McQueen.These nappies also come as integral parts of a chicken dress with bows on the back or with a pre installed D ring so that you can attach a leash. These "Leash Ready" diapers come in packets of 4.

Now I don't know about you but while I can't say I exactly love chicken poop I do not feel the need to attach a bag to the hen's rear in order to catch it before it soils the garden. I guess the kind of people who like a chicken nappy are the sort of people who want their chickens to have free access to the sofa and sky TV. After all what is life without "The Real Housewives of Orange County" or "Dog the Bounty Hunter."? Perhaps even a bit of  "Jeremy Kyle". Of course the mention of Mr Kyle has thrust an unwanted image of chickens sitting on high stools being interviewed about their dysfunctional families. There are at least two cockerels duking it out over who is the eggy daddy....

Of course when I did a web search for bizarre chicken accessories I didn't find things for chickens. I found chicken themed things for people . Masks, costumes, er.....the kind of bedroom accouterments we don't need to discuss here. Clearly the world is chicken mad.

On balance I'll stick to feeding the girls on organic free range pellets, the odd bit of bacon and grain and I'll continue wearing wellies, a grubby sweater and an old pair of leggings when i'm tending to them. and where it comes to the chickens bathroom habits and free ranging? Somehow I think Chicken nappies and leads are for other, perhaps less busy, people.

The Great Escape

Cover Me I'm Going In.

You may remember that earlier in the year we had to clip John's wings. She kept flying over into next door's garden and, as they have a lovely but enthusiastic lurcher we thought that in the interest of safety and sanity we would limit her access.All was going swimmingly, John and I were almost back on clucking terms, when Henrietta Chicken decided she was ready to investigate the world at large.

Henrietta is the first to leap on you at the first sign of a meal worm or a sunflower seed. She has come a long way from her early timidity and, we think, was the first to lay an egg. She has lovely speckled feathers and, aside from the patch of blue fence paint on her wing from her attempts at helping Bob to paint the raised beds, is a lovely roan colour. She has bags of personality (or is that chickenality) and we adore her. However she is a wayward hen at the best of times. 

Henrietta and Beatrice both have a taste for cat food. The moment they spot an opening they are in through the back door and chomping their way through whatever variety the cats have turned up their noses at. I've no doubt you share my horror at the practice of turning animals past their prime into protein pellets for their progeny. It was responsible in large part for BSE. Bovines are grass eaters. Pulping them up and feeding them to the next generation was always going to cause trouble-allegedly cannibals (human cannibals) that eat a great deal of same species flesh develop the shakes and terrible nervous system problems. If you look at the ingredient list for virtually any brand of cat food you will see chicken listed amongst the few meat ingredients. Now, to be fair, the avarage high street brand only contains 4% meat so there's little danger of the girls showing signs of dementia in the near future however the thought of them eating their sisters fills me with horror. Not so the chickens.

The single mindedness with which they apply themselves to breaking into the house or out of the garden is awe inspiring. People keep telling me how thick chickens are but if they aren't so clever they sure have native cunning. In the morning, when you go to let them out of the run, if you don't close the back door behind you the first hen is in the cat food before the last one has made it out of the hen house door. This is becoming true of their ability to escape the compound we call our garden. 

It's not actually Colditz but it is not the lush green garden it has been in the past. There is barely a blade of grass left. Plants are ripped from the soil as soon as they raise their spring heads and the hedge is gradually being denuded too. In view of this it is hardly surprising that the hens feel the urge to forage for greener surroundings. I doubt there is so much as a snails egg left to chomp on. The same is not true of neighbouring plots.Yet.

On Wednesday last week I was quietly reading when I heard Bob yell up to boy number one "Er, could you pop out the front a moment? I need a hand." I didn't hear what transpired but a few hours later I was treated to the tale of Henrietta's first taste of freedom. Evidently she'd got over the wall, had a dash around and then headed out to the side road for a look. Thankfully Bob was just walking down to the allotment when he spotted her. He tried to get his hands on her but she was having none of it. Evidently having chased her back and forth between two front gardens he finally gave in and called Joel to help. Between the two of them she was corralled and returned to secure accommodation.

I clipped her wings. She wasn't pleased, it wasn't fun for either of us. Having researched wing clipping I chose the kinder alternative of clipping only a part of each wing which meant she wouldn't be off balance and could still bimble about chicken fashion without too much interference. The following day I let the girls out for a run. Someone on the skills exchange came to pick up a keyboard and in the 10 minutes my attention was not on the rear garden she vanished. Vamoosed. Disappeared. No Henrietta.

I peered in both the next door gardens. No chicken. So I walked round the back into the private road that backs onto our rear fence. No Chicken. However there were the tell tale signs that someone with claws had been scratching around the neat border of primulas and miniature daffodils our neighbours so carefully tend. No. Chicken. I knocked on the door of the bungalow which was answered by an elderly gentleman who looked like the guy in that painting American Gothic. I asked "Have you seen a chicken around here recently?" "yes I have. Must be the third time this week. It's ruined the garden." "Did you see where it went?" "No, and I don't care. What about my garden" "I'm sorry, I have to find the hen first but when I do I'll come back and sort out your borders" "Just see that you do" 

Copyright the Chicago Art Institute.

By now I was absolutely beside myself. I was also limping a bit after straining an ankle running for the bus the day before. So I limped around the local streets asking those I saw "Have you seen a chicken?" I can only hypothesise from the looks and sniggers that the good burgers of West Bridgford thought I had been taking my chicken for a walk and it had given me the slip. I suppose it is unusual to be asked whether you have spotted a missing chicken. Perhaps given the surreal nature of the inquiry it was not such a leap of imagination to weird women with a hen on a lead.

I retraced my steps and thought I would try a little Sherlock style deduction. Looking at the neighbours destroyed flower bed I realised that there was a pattern of debris about the place that could only have been scraped up by the claws of a large avian. Knowing ostriches to be in short supply I moved around the clutch of bungalows and noted other tell tale signs and then heard a friendly chicken gurgle. A few moments later a tired but happy Henrietta allowed me to pick her up virtually without complaint. I returned her to the run with her sisters where she happily busied herself with the feed hopper.

I returned to our neighbour, swept up his path and replanted the primulas that had been dislodged. In general she hadn't done too much damage but I apologised and offered pay war reparations. Subsequently we have had to lock her in the run for most of the day because after a further two escapades it became clear that our neighbours are not of the friendly forgiving kind and, understandably, do not take kindly to a chicken in the herbaceous border. I have now saved up enough eggs to take round as a peace offering but I suspect it is going to take a bit more than a box of the lovely girls' efforts to draw a smile from the poor man.

Spring Bees

Are we through the worst of the winter.

When I looked at the bees the other day the warmer weather had drawn them out to forage and, thanks to the incredibly mild year, there seems to be a lot of blossom on the trees and spring flowers are opening earlier than you might expect.

I rang Karina to tell her the hive had survived the summer and she warned me that the same happened to her last year but come Good Friday they found the hive had died. I cannot begin to imagine the sorrow she must have felt. You become extremely attached to what is essentially a box full of insects. Somehow there has been a synergy between bees and humans for millenia and we remain connected.

It seems that, however much they take in in the autumn (and if you remember our bees had about 21 kilos of sugar syrup over September and October) if the queen lays early then it becomes a race to find sufficient nectar to make into honey. The bees were rushing in with their pollen covered yellow trousers and evidently this is a sign of new brood. Although they store a great deal of pollen in the capped wax cells, they still prefer to feed new brood on fresh food. A commendable approach. One I wish i'd been able to use for my new family.

The winter isn't over yet for the bees.

Yours pensively
Katherine

Our First Look in the Hive 2014: And Finally Me in a Bee Keeping Suit.

Over 10 Degrees Celsius at Last.

We have been aching to see inside the hive for the last month or so. I hefted the hive (the process of assessing the weight of the hive by lifting one side) It seemed a lot more maneuverable than it was last year and I cam promise you there has been no weight training going on in the interim.

What has happened in the interim is that I have acquired a bee keeping suit that fits a little better. It's still not an ABBA moment but at the very least I can bend down to pick up a dropped hive tool which is a significant improvement. 

You can't really see much here except me in what looks suspiciously like a babygro on the left hand side. I'm still using two rubber washing up gloves worn on top of each other to compensate for a lack of proper bee keeping gloves. Alex has proper long leather gauntlets but he's very kind and doesn't laugh.

We had planned to open the hive in the morning but when I checked the temperature it was only 8 degrees. The wind was blowing and it looked like threatening rain. Also, I felt like hell, so I went back to bed. The sun came out in the afternoon and as it pushed a balmy 14 degrees C Alex turned up to take me through the process. We smoked down the hive and took off the super and crown board. Underneath the bees were active but not overly upset at our intrusion. There was no agressive flying and the bees just fell to the joyful job of munching on honey.

Here you can see some bees enjoying the excess that they've built to fill up the spaces. We'd already scraped a fair bit off. You can see that most of the bees here are quite dark apparently this means they are winter bees. Some of them have been flying out for supplies and bringing back their golden pollen treasure hoards.

Here you get a better idea of how much they've built to fill the spaces between the frames.

This picture shows a frame propped up against the side of the hive while which gives us space to look at another without any unfortunate bee squishing. You can see the new honey built around the central section. It is common for the queen to lay her eggs in a rugby ball pattern through the middle of many frames. This means they are at the centre of the hive which is the warmest and the worker bees build honey comb around them in order to but insulate and provide stores for the new brood and the queen.

And here I am proudly and joyfully holding, not dropping, a comb full of honey and covered in bees. It's a strange thing to know all those bees could suddenly decide they needed to protect themselves. But here they are, chowing down on good old honey. And did I mention I wasn't panicking?

The net result was that the hive was clean, industrious and had supplies. The workers are already bringing back pollen and nectar for the year ahead and the queen has commenced spring laying. As long as the weather doesn't suddenly run headlong into an unexpected winter we should be able to avoid feeding them and be able to start putting on supers to collect the honey.

Watch this space.

Happy Hunting

Katherine

Whooping Cough: I thought I'd published this but forgot so here it is 6 weeks late. I'm quite better btw.

At My Age?

I was sent home from work last week because, frankly, I couldn't draw breath and I couldn't hold a conversation which, in retail, makes you worse than useless. I thought it was the tail end of an annoying cough but since I couldn't breathe I made an emergency appointment with the GP. He gave me some steroids and antibiotics and told me to come back on Friday. Cough still no better Friday so the GP gave me higher doses of steroids and told me to stay off work. Monday still no better. The coughing was beyond ridiculous so I went back at which point the GP said "Whooping Cough"

But I'm too old for whooping cough and anyway I was vaccinated. Oh and although I can't draw breath I'm not whooping. Just going blue in the face and choking a bit. 

I'm still waiting for the blood test results but it seems I probably do have what is considered a childhood disease. However it isn't a childhood disease. It is simply the case that complications are more likely in childhood and because a child can't express itself the paroxysms are particularly distressing for parent and child alike.

For those of you unfamiliar with the arc of whooping cough or Bordatella pertussis here is the skinny:

Initially the disease presents as a head cold, possibly a bit of a cough and a runny nose. There may be fever and there will probably be a headache. This will last a few days maybe up to two weeks but then seem to improve. During this period you are at your most infectious and likely to pass it on to friends and co workers who are susceptible.

After a few days the cough begins in ernest and this is referred to as the paroxysmal phase. During this time talking, breathing, changes in air temperature (and did I mention?) breathing can all set off paroxysms of coughing. In about 50% of cases these end in a desperate gasp for breath which produces the characteristic "whoop" which gives the illness it's name. According to a practitioner I know a good immune system can prevent the whoop but cant fight off the bug. I definitely don't have the whoop.

The paroxysmal phase can last anything from 2 weeks to 8 weeks. I'm taking loads of herbs so I'm hoping they will enable my immune system to keep this to a minimum but I discover that in a number of countries it's known as the 100 day cough. Which brings me to the convalescent phase which I hope is where i'm heading but can apparently take from three to 6 months.

Whooping cough is starting to make a comeback.  Another herbalist freind had it last year and when i mentioned it to a friend from the allotment she said someone else she knew had it. So I looked up the figures.

That's just the UK but the trend is the same all over the world. It is suggested that this apparent trend is simply the result of better awareness and testing but I can assure you that GP's knew whooping cough when they saw it in the past. But who knows, perhaps loads of adults had it and didn't know because they didn't make the noise? Who knows but make sure you know the symptoms because if you catch it early antibiotics or a whacking great dose of crushed garlic might abort it in it's tracks. Once you get to the paroxysmal phase the antibiotics just stop others getting it. You're stuffed.

Things that make it better. Hot dead sea salt baths. Sitting outside in the cold air with a chicken on my lap. Hot lemon and honey and cinnamon. Not doing much. Eating cake. Cake is proving to be specific for suspected whooping cough. It's also specific for my waistline but after all, it's medicine......

Dreams of Summer

The Bees Venture Out.

It has been cold and damp, mostly damp. Britain has been in the grip of the worst rain storms and flooding since records began. Now records began about 60 years ago but all the same the Somerset Levels are no longer a valley but a sea. In fact they've been a sea since before Christmas. However the stoical people of the west country didn't complain until Dawlish railway station fell in the sea and great lumps of ballast were thrown onto the high street by the waves. 

Politicians finally got their wellies on when the Thames started to rise a bit. Once people in the Thames Valley were getting wet feet tories could see their constituencies being reduced to silt and finally pulled their fingers out. Apparently the environment agency had been told that every pound they spent had to reap an 8 to 1 reward. That is to say if they spent £1 it had to return an £8 benefit in economic terms. Consequently farmland in the west country was less of a priority than Tory voters' homes  near the Thames.

And it seems that central southerners are a bunch of whingeing nancies. There they were on telly in their galoshes "We have heard there could be a lot of rain tonight. What are the government going to do about it?" while the West Country folk were taking the kids to school in a rowing boat and dressing them in waders "..Yes" said one woman "It's gettting a bit tiresome now. The sofa floated away and the cat wont come down off the roof but we're making the best of it" 

A friend of mine who lives by the sea but works in Exeter rang me in frustration saying it had taken her nearly 2 hours to get to work because the flooding had finally damaged her car exhaust and she'd had to go to work by bus. In london people take the day off if theres a danger of the wrong kind of leaves on the line. After all little Tarquin couldn't be expected to have to shake the dew off his jacket at school. He might catch a cold.

Enough with the sarcasm. It has been terrible. People have died and friends have suffered. Our garden is waterlogged but it looks worse than it is because agent chicken has completely defoliated the environs. However the clever little cluckers are laying an egg a day each now so they have earned the right to be a little demanding. We're very proud. They haven't really enjoyed the underwater aspect but we can proudly say that the only part of our back yard that isn't muddy is their Chicken Run. Cluckingham Palace is a Des Res indeed.

Bees

The ladies have weathered the winter. It hasn't been cold but it's been wet and that can cause problems of it's own. This morning when I let the hens out I ventured over to look at the hive. Over the last couple of months it has been very quiet, just the occasional brave soul checking to see all was clear but today you could hear the buzz from the back step.

When I looked out of our bedroom window I could see hundreds of bees drawing lazy spirals around the hive as they orientated themselves to their environment. At this stage in the year they may well be new bees who are venturing out for the first time ever. I know that bees communicate their location easily to their compadres but it is amazing to think that bees who have been quietly working away in the hive since their birth can know what is expected of them without ever having seen the outside world.

But for today, in the early spring sun they looked like drops of sunshine from heaven and made me dream of summer.