Send your Hens to work!

Have you ever taken over a plot or a piece of land that is overgrown? 

I suspect most of us who have an allotment have been in this position.  Ifyou are considering taking on an allotment, it would be good practice spending a considerable amount of time clearing the plot, or a section if it is a large allotment, even though the urge to sow and plant will be practically unbearable.

When I took on my allotment in 2008 it was overgrown, covered in wood, plastic fencing and chicken wire.  

Due to the size of the plot I have tackled it in sections.

We all look for ways of cutting corners and often they don't work, however I have been discussing an alternative with my allotment neighbour recently.

An army of hard worker goats could be very useful. I'm sure they would make short work of all the weeds and brambles.  You are however unlikely to get permission from your council or allotment association to graze a goat on the land, and there is no way you could be 100% sure that they would not escape and munch their way through all the lovely produce being grown by your neighbours.  I can see the eviction notice now!

Chickens!  You may not be permitted to keep chickens on your allotment permanently, but if I use my situation as an example. I have a significant area that needs clearing but do not have time to clear it at present.

I have 3 fully grown hens in my garden at home.  It is feasible to take the hens to the allotment when I visit for an hour or two.  A cat box or cardboard box with ventilation would do the trick.  They can be let loose on the over grown area, even fenced in if required with some cheap netting and bamboo canes.

They will scratch, clear the plot, eat any bugs and slugs and fertilise as they go!
Now this is not a quick solution, and you certainly need to ensure that it does not stress the hens and that you have approval.  But why not give it a go.

Another one bites the dust but the rest are thriving

I started to think I was doing something seriously wrong. It had only been one week since the last episode and they were a totally separate hatching group.
Why all of a sudden, my Wheaton maran decided it was time to flutter from the coop at 4 weeks old I still do not know.
I am starting to appreciate that symptoms are very similar for many of the poultry illnesses and unless you visit the local vets surgery for a postmortem you will never know.
An educated guess is the closest you can get and it is quite frankly frustrating.
The Wheaton was four weeks old, and so I expected to be past the most dangerous period, and having mysteriously lost 7 chicks a week earlier I was not expecting further losses.
All the symptoms pointed to cocsiodiccis

Ruffled, spikes feathers
Hunched posture
Shutting of eyes
Unstable on legs
Not eating and drinking very little

The only symptom missing was blood in the droppings.
However the crackle from the chest area when breathing maybe suggested a respiratory infection.

To avoid any further losses I am treating the chicks with Coxoid for 7 days. I will then follow with a tonic to give them a boost.

Fingers crossed and thanks for reading.

You need the lows to appreciate the highs!

What a day I had Sunday. I have been harping on about it for long enough on twitter now. I'm still no closer to knowing what caused it, but the potential reasons for the chicks I have been hatching all of a sudden moving on to the coop in the sky have increased. So I am putting it down to bad luck and will be keeping a close eye on future hatches.

I had 11 chicks in total, most were 2-3 days old. 3 gold lace Wyandotte chicks were recent hatches, they had fluffed up and so I added them to the brooder.
Long story short, one check all seemed fine, 30minutes later the gold lace were dead on their backs with 2 lavender Araucana staggering around and one silver lace wyandotte in a similar condition. I put them straight back in my incubator thinking it may have been a heat issue. Sadly they did not make it.

There are many theories including loss of heat, infection, bullying, fighting or maybe it was just a defect inherited from parents.

It's sad, but it is time to move on. I have 3 Araucana Lavender bantams and 1 silver lace Wyandotte bantam to add to the 4 silver lace hatched 10 weeks ago and 2 croad langshan.
I'm lucky to have these and hope the silver lace will be good enough to create a breeding trio from.
Looking forward, I am still fascinated by the Wyandotte, so I'm sure they will be on the agenda at some point again soon, but I'm thinking long and hard on what breed to hatch next.

I currently have 2 CLB females at 4 weeks old and I hope a wheaten maran to go with them, but what other pure breed would you add to this collection producing dark brown and blue eggs?

The leghorn has been suggested and I like this idea due to the white eggs that it lays. I also like the idea of Rhode Island Red. Great looking, good layers and of course a good size.
Some careful thinking required over the next few weeks is required.

I am also being drawn to ducks, specifically the Welsh Harlequin. I don't want many, just a drake with two ladies. To hatch or to buy a trio, that is the question. The other decision is how to provide a water source for them to bath in. Plastic paddling pool, trug, old bath?

Short term there is a pause in the hatching whilst I catch up on all the veg jobs I have been putting off. Main crop potatoes need to go in, carrots and parsnips need sowing, along with runner beans, butternut squash and sweetcorn.
It's amazing how in control you can feel in February and March, then all of a sudden it is 1st May, we hit the panic button and I find I sow everything at once and end up with a glut of veg.

Thanks for reading

Broody Bantam!

Croad Langsan Chick

Two days ago I was smiling smugly to myself. The 7 week old chicks were down the allotment, 3 week old chicks were outside under heat, the next batch of chicks are due to hatch in a few days, all five hens were laying, the asparagus starting to show and I was starting to imagine poached eggs on top of asparagus and toast for breakfast.

Today however, I discovered one of the Wyandotte bantam chicks I hatched approximately 6 months ago has gone all maternal on me. Yes, its broody bantam syndrome.

I should have realised sooner as she was spending more time in the coop than usual. When I returned from a night away, eight eggs had been pooled together neatly in the bottom of the coop. A perfect little spot for a bantam to sit.  Today I had to fight to get the two freshly laid eggs. At least she did not peck me, but she did look rather disgusted at being shoved off her nest area.

A final check on the undercarriage area confirmed the broody status, as she was free from feathers, plucked so neatly, I am sure in a past like she had been a beauty therapist.

My Bantam Goldlace Wyandottes

I have a few options I guess. I think any more fertile eggs may result in a divorce just at the moment, so I will try and encourage her to stop as soon as possible by collecting eggs frequently so she can not sit and if need be move her to her own little drafty cool coop/nest box for a few days. Something that has no bedding and lots of ventilation so that it cools her a little.


The other option is dunking her in a cold bucket of water (up to the neck I might add) but that does seem a little harsh as we are still getting some cool mornings.

Would be interesting to hear if anyone has any other ways of bringing a hen out of the broody cycle.

Thanks for reading.

The Chickens Move In!

Chicks now down the allotment

After all that work and effort I have finally moved the first of the chickens down to the allotment.  It was exciting but nerve racking at the same time.  It has taken months of planning, hard work and along the way there have been plenty of questions; can I do this, will it work?

Well in the end I took the "oh bugger it" approach.  By that I mean, you can keep planning and deliberating but until you take that first step, or leap in my case, you just don't know how it will work out.  So I did, and I have jumped a little like a skydiver. 

My allotment April 2013

I say skydiver because there has been some planning, but there has also been a element of excitement and free fall.

It has dawned on me that in five days there are potentially 12 new lives entering the world via my incubator set up in the spare room.  Twelve on top of the 4 chicks that were hatched and purchased 3 weeks ago and the 6 chicks that hatched approximately 7 weeks ago.

That's 22, oh not forgetting the 5 hens I have in the back garden!  Eeek!  That's 27!

I only had 3 hybrids in the back garden back in September 2012.  So if you are looking for proof that chicken keeping is addictive, look no further!

I know it is unlikely that all 12 will hatch, in fact my hatch rate has been quite poor at less than 50%, so I can easily see that only 6-8 will hatch. 

The plan is to keep some and sell others on.  I'm not looking for profits, just really making sure that when the chickens leave, they are going to someone who cares and will look after them.  I always feel that if you offer them for free it suggests they are not worth anything, not in a monetary sense but as a living thing, and this I do not feel comfortable with.  I am prepared for the worse case and not being able to rehome, so the only option then is the pot!  Lets hope it does not get that far.

Why keep chickens?

Well obsession, interest, business, pleasure!?  Perhaps all of the above and more.

When we took on the allotment back in 2006 it was an over grown dump.  The chairman of the association offered us the plot measuring approximately 30 metres by 15 metres as a whole.  It is a corner plot and at the bottom corner of the allotments furthest from the entrance and the water.  It was surrounded by trees, brambles, and housed the remains of a chicken coop, derelict shed, sheets of glass, razor wire and not to mention japanese knotweed and weeds at 4 foot high!

800 grams of Purple Sprouting picked April 2013

We took the plot on as a long term family project, encouraged greatly by Rachel my wife.  We knew there was a section that would never be workable for growing produce and so did the chairman, that is why I think he was pleased we took the whole lot.  It saved him the annual headache of trying to gather enough volunteers to cut back the overgrowth and try and clear any dumped rubbish.

The unproductive area is now where we are keeping chickens, and in the future hopefully a couple of ducks and the odd turkey for Christmas.

F1 Kale Picked April 2013

So I guess chickens on the allotment was the plan form day one, perhaps not so many chickens but I'm sure it will work out, even if there is a little Arthur daily action required in the future to restore the balance.

Thanks for reading and don't forget if you fancy Wyandottes, silver or gold lace let me know by email andrew_homer@rocketmail.com and I will keep you updated with progress as and when they become available.

Hatching AGAIN for breeding!

We're off again! The incubator is running and the first 6 eggs were set on Thursday 4th April. Lavender Araucana eggs in great condition and of great shape kindly provided by Mark at Norfolk Bantams.  I love the look of these birds and they lay blue eggs so I'm excited at hatching and hopefully keeping some hens and maybe cockerels.


On Friday 6 more eggs were added (allowing for a 24 hours settling period after being tossed thought he post by royal mail) this time it was the turn of the silver lace Wyandottes. I am not holding out much hope for these as the eggs that have been sold to me are not of regular shape. 4 out of 6 appear to be elongated. This to me suggests there is limited chance of hatching.

My Wyandotte Silver Lace Bantam 5 weeks old

I'm very disappointed with them and will certainly not be using this supplier again.

Saturday at 11 am 6 further eggs were added, this time goldlace wyandottes. Very good size and condition, so fingers crossed these will hatch a good cockerel to go with the two hens that I hatched under my broody last year.


Ideally I wanted to set all the eggs at the same time but the postal system prevented this and I thought it best to get them in the incubator after 24 hours rest.  The longer I left them, the closer they got to 7 days old, and it is suggested the hatch rate reduces after this period.

So the main hurdle to overcome with this hatch is stopping the auto turning on the incubator.  This should generally be stopped at day 18 for chicken eggs.  As I set my eggs in three batches with around 24 hours between each batch, I'm faced with day 18 being spread over three days.  Not ideal really but the plan is to stop the auto turning on day 18 for the first batch of Araucana's, then manually turn the silver lace and gold lace Wyandotte eggs for the remaining day to two days.  With that sorted I also have to turn attention to the hatching dates, again spread over three days.  I don't have a spare incubator so I will be allowing the chicks to hatch and moving them out the incubator to the brooder as soon as possible (recommended minimum period is 24 hours) to try and prevent any damage or contamination to unhatched eggs.  All fingers and toes are crossed for a good hatch rate so that I can start breeding! 

I will of course let you know how it works out and I'm sure there will be some hens and cockerels available in 10 weeks time if anyone is interested.

Thanks for reading, more updates to follow.

The Chicken Run

Almost finished chicken run

Finally I have managed to get down to my allotment for a reasonable length of time to continue what I has started approximately four weeks ago.
Of the three hour stint, about an hour was spent scratching my head and drinking a cup of tea trying to work out how to construct a door opening that would not fall apart (my usual standard of DIY) and one that was fox proof.
I got there in the end and I managed to cable tie the fencing to the wooden posts and build a door from scrap left on the plot from the previous tenant.

The area prior to the chicken run

A bit of a result for me. Now all I have to do is lay slabs around the perimeter of the fence to deter foxes from digging under the wire/security fencing and secure heavy duty plastic mesh to the roof.  The mesh for the roof is the same material I have used to cover the top half of the door.

It is very strong and there was a huge amount of the material again left behind by the previous tenant.
So far the total cost is only £25 for the whole enclosure and it provides 150 square feet of space.  I admit I have only bought cable ties fence posts and hinges, but I guess it shows what you can do by recycling and being inventive.

Last years onions growing

With all this effort going into the chicken run I have neglected the vegetable growing side of the allotment a little.  I had plans to prepare several beds with manure and dig my runner bean trench to fill with kitchen veg waste.  Neither of these things have happened, and the potato beds are currently covered in weeds and last years cabbage crop.
In future years I am planning on using the chickens to help keep beds clear by using netting around the beds keeping the chickens in (whilst i am on the allotment) and leaving them to free range to scratch to their hearts content.  Not only will the y clear, but hopefully they will fertilise as they go.  That's the theory anyway!

Back at home sowing is in full swing and most window cills are full with leeks, peas, potatoes, lettuce, purple sprouting and Brussels sprouts.  The broad beans sown in February have grown well and are now hardened off and outside ready to be planted, if I can clear the bed that is!

Thanks for reading.  Chick update coming soon.