NannyP's Hens

I just wanted to have a place to share photos of my hens and a bit of a diary about my poultry keeping.

I've been keeping Hens since May 2004 and, having never kept them before, so had a lot to learn .

We started out with 4 hens, which we bought from a local Rare Breeds place in Devon.  We brought home 2 Welsummers and 2 Gold Lace Wyandottes. It took us a while to name them, choosing to wait until we could see their different characters.  First to be named was Chiken Likin Purple, who my Grandson Tomas had chosen before we got the hens.  We assigned this to one of the Wyandotte's, next was Ratchet (Welsummer) as she was top of the pecking order and we likened this to Nurse Ratchet in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest". Next, to be honest I can't remember what we had named the other two, and sadly one of the Wyandotte's was very ill within weeks, we took her back to the breeder who was very upset to see her so unwell and put her down and offered us a replacement.  We replaced her with 2 Bantam Wyandotte's a Black one and a Blue Laced one, we named them Hinge and Bracket. We sadly lost the other Welsummer whilst we were on holiday, we're not sure what happened, but she was just coming into lay and I believe she became egg bound, she died on the nest. So we still only had 4 chickens, 2 large fowl and 2 bantams.

In August, Hinge became broody, sitting for weeks on the nest.  At one point I put some eggs beneath her from the local shop, just in case they may have been fertilised.  They weren't, so I took them away and after a few more days she came out of the coop.  Her comb was pale and she never seem to recover to full health, she continued to free range with the others in the garden and eat well, but remained pale.  Sadly, a few weeks later she suddenly went downhill and died, we had a Post Mortem and found that she had become egg bound, having never coming back into lay after her broody patch.

So, after a few weeks, I became broody and decided I wanted to increase our flock, so we bought an Ark and then went to the breeders again and bought 2 Blue Orpington bantams and a Partridge Wyandotte. The Blue Orps are called Rosie (smaller, darker) and Blue and the Wyandotte is called McQueen as she gave us a few headaches at the beginning with escaping.

So, that's my flock, now, I have to work out how to post photos onto here as this is new too.

I wrote the above back in 2005, and we have now been living in France since July 2006 9it's now March 2008).   I currently have 8 mature laying hens, 1 maturish coq, a young 20 week hen plus 2 coqs who will be for the pot in another couple of weeks. 6 assorted 8 weeks olds, mostly for the pot...and a new, one week old hatch of 10 table birds, plus 2 brahma chicks and 2 Cream Legbar hen chicks.  The hens on this front page were all rehomed before we left for France.  I loved the Orpingtons, and may replace them one day 

Music throughoout the website is mostly the delightful Mother Ted from their first Album Seaside Shenanigans, thank you Aideen, Sue and Annie for allowing me to use your beautiful music. Billy Joel I would thank, but he doesn't return my calls! Also credits to Paul McCartney and Wings, Leftfield and Travis 

I hope you enjoy your visit and thanks for dropping by .  Oh, and please leave a message in my Guestbook, I love to read them, and do try to respond to them.

A bientot 

Kathy

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
-- Douglas Adams, from Last Chance To See ("a great book on natural history, extinction, and how we're managing to stuff this planet up fairly badly," says Iain)

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