Chickies

We have recently in the last 9 monthd become Hen owners. Gosh, I wished we had them much earlier.

We originally purchased them for their eggs, but we rapidly fell in love with their quirky ways. We began hand feeding them and this led to the hens trusting us to care for them.

They do have quite the area to roam around in and spend all day foraging in.

We began our hen journey with 4 pullet chickens. They were quite young and flighty.

We had to be patient as these little darling settled in, so they would produce eggs for us.

It was quite the journey to prepare for them and make a little safe home for them.

We have a big yard, so we fenced off a big area for them to roam. We renovated an old wood shed with nesting beds and a ladder. We added a window that served the purpose of opening to collect eggs. We also installed a solar small door that goes up with dawn and up with dusk. This keep them safe from foxes.

With these tasks complete we just needed to wait for our chickens to be old enough to come and live in their palace.

The day arrived it was kind of an anti climax. chickens inside their coop to become familiar with it for a few days. Hmm ok. We finally were able to let them out to explore their space, then wait for the signs of egg laying. It seemed like ages before we got our first egg. We were excited. Such a cool feeling producing your own produce. Pretty soon we had all four hens laying daily. Mostly four eggs a day.

We have four nesting boxes, but they choose to use just one. They all take their turn to lay their egg in one box. We pad their boxes out with animal bedding and straw. Makes them warm and cosy.

They are quite light, so they can fly easily. We would often see them in other areas of our yard, walking toward the house to find us. You see we were hand feeding them every day and they enjoyed the interaction. But girls its not that safe !!

One day our youngest dog (who was extremely curious with these chickens) and one of our chickens met. It wasn't pretty and shall I say, we lost our queen and best layer. I will spare you the gross details.

This was quite upsetting for us and the other three hens. They had to find a queen within the flock. then one day we heard a loud cackle and we knew they had their queen.

There are so many funny stories with these sweeties.

Did you know that there are pecking orders to who sits where, who climbs the ladder first, who lays first, who leaves the coop first etc. It is quite hysterical watching them.

We made the decision to purchase 3 more hens. We wanted to supply our extended family with some of our eggs. This would be fun as we integrated them together.

This time we didn't follow the rule of keeping them in the coop for days. We would let them out a few hours a day to forage.

We noticed that one little lady was a little thinner than the other new hens. She was rather timid and would often be well away from the flock. She was being pecked and bullied.

I decided I needed to encourage her by hand feeding her. Up until this point the three younger hens would run away from us. We noticed that they were just beginning to squat- a sign of maturing and getting ready to lay. Other signs we noticed they were not as flighty and were ok to be touched without running away. Watching hens runs is quite hysterical.

Needless to say that this little hen has learnt very quickly that I had lovely seeds of all sorts for her and she would run to meet me at the fence. So sweet. I named her Daisy. Did I say she is sweet, oh yeah I did. The others did not miss out, believe me.

This was quite positive for her as she is now more confident and is less pecked by the others.

We are still waiting for our young ones to produce their first egg. But when they do we will celebrate.

If you are ever looking at setting up your yard with hens just get them. We love ours and they are quite entertaining to watch.

I hoped you enjoyed this little fun story.

Leanne