A week of chickens

Anna looking at our hens on their first day with us. I am sure they've grown a lot even since then, they look small in this photo.

We have had our ladies a week now. They have changed! At first they wouldn't even eat silverbeet (or Swiss chard to non-New Zealanders). Now we have almost no silverbeet left. They get agitated when the children go out in the evenings - they think it's silverbeet time! Fortunately they also love lettuce plants that have bolted and we have lots of those.

In the weekend I made them a small fenced run. They were out there straight away, pecking and scratching in major delight. After a couple of hours they had unearthed some nice dry bare soil and they began to dustbathe. This is said to be VERY important to chickens. They go into a kind of hypnotic state as they lie down and practically writhe in the dust. This would have been their first ever dustbath because they had no decent place where they came from, or even in our coop (not that I'm sure why they don't do it in their straw).

The next day, yesterday, my daughter Anna left their run open and they got out and of course went straight into the vege garden. Strangely they were there for probably an hour and there was only one defoliated tomato plant to show for it. I had read they go for the insects etc in the soil first. They were hard to catch - well, tame little Padme wasn't, Jack caught her!

Then today we went out for HOURS and came back and they were out again. I can't figure out how, they must have done some athletic jump. Into the strawberry patch this time, where I had also planted 2 capsicum and a tomato. Further defoliation. Possibly not terminal though. It was easy to catch them because Ian's netted the strawberry patch against birds.

Clearly it is time to improve the fencing of the run and I bought 10 warratahs today to do that. I just need better netting. It also needs to be dog proof. We've only had one dog come onto our property in 4 years here though so we'd have to be pretty unlucky.

Cleverclogs very occasionally uses the high perch. Not much though. I think it is too hard for them to get up there yet.

The children are absolutely loving them and visit them lots, hold them, talk to them. It is adding a wonderful extra dimension to our lives. And there aren't even any eggs to collect yet! Last weekend was Labour weekend, the traditional time for planting out summer crops, and the weather was perfect so we did just that. It was great having the children there playing with the chooks while we gardened.

We have chickens!

Yesterday we collected our three Orpington hens. My husband is nearly insane because he's spent the last 2 weeks doing nothing but going to work and building a chicken coop. It's a great one though!

We have no pets so the chooks are to be our pets. We chose (well, I chose) Orpingtons because they are said to have a good nature and can be handled like pets. So far they are not so keen but they will just have to get used to it. They are only about 3 months old. Also I chose them because they are so beautiful! They are not looking overly beautiful yet because they are so young.

Our children, Jack (6) and Anna (3) are very excited. Last night Anna said to them "Now tonight you have to go to sleep in your cage, chickens. You be nice and kind to each other, OK?" They visit them frequently. Probably not as much as I do though!

Already we observe their personalities. The black one is a bit older and by far the most confident. She's the first to explore anything put in the coop. (Although they are not really into eating anything other than their processed mix at this point - that's all they've been used to.) The black one ate a centipede though.

The other two are a bit younger and are blue orpingtons (which really means grey!). The darker one is bossy around food. The smallest and palest grey one gets a bit pushed around but is the only one that lets us pat her.

They are called Cleverclogs (my son's choice), Marian (my PhD supervisor's name - she is an ethologist who works with chickens) and Padme (there are two star wars fans in this house). Padme's the pale one.

I think CC and Marian are vying for top hen. Although generally they all seem to get on well and sit cuddled together frequently, tonight these two were jumping and flying at each other beak first like fighting cocks! It was more of a display than anything, they weren't hurting each other. Interesting though.

It is such fun watching them do all their chicken behaviour. They seemed delighted to find straw on their floor (they lived on plain grass in their old home, where they were bred). Peck, peck, peck. Today they realised that under the grass under the straw was dirt they could scratch at and they were all checking that out enthusiastically.