New Chooks at the Barn
As you'll recall from this post we've now doubled the poultry population at the Barn with three new joiners to the existing flock. We've chosen chickens this time on the basis of their ability to deliver interesting coloured eggs, We've a Skyline, (the pale multi-hued lass on the right of the photo) which allegedly will deliver blue/green eggs and a White Ranger which should produce really white ones. There's also a Red Ranger to keep up the numbers.
I'm trying to avoid any naming of the birds to prevent the repetition of the anthropomorphism and resultant emotional response when I suggested, (now that their productivity is dropping off) serving the exis
ting birds for lunch.
A couple of weekends ago Her ladyship and I ambled down to Leatherhead to collect our new recruits. What the nice lady at www.southmeadpoultry.com who supplied my chickens conveniently forgot to mention is that we'd chosen three of the fastest breeds, both on foot (where they make the roadrunner look sluggish) and despite clipped wings they're all pretty good at getting airborne resulting in one very exhausted chicken wrangler and three deeply traumatised chickens on their first night in their new home.
Despite the obvious advantages they enthusiastically resisted the safety of their new coop and tried to go and play in the wood with their new chums Mr and Mrs Fox and their ravenous brood.
Hey ho, it keeps me fit and I'm sure they'll stop shaking (with laughter maybe?) in a week or so.
The older generation of 'diminishing returns' poultry are pretty miffed about the territorial implications of younger, more productive, neighbours and have a adopted a traditional British Trades Union approach of non-co-operation with the management and hysterical pecking and squawking at the competition.
I'm sure it will all work out in time, if not there's still the option of a "coq au vin pour encourage les autres".
Labels: chickens stuffy oakwood barn poultry eglu omlet foxes smallholding
posted by Stuffy @ 7:00 pm
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