My online stories
The chicks at ten days old. The first ten days of keeping chicks is quite straightforward. They're too small and too sleepy to do or want for much. It's basically check their food (they eat a lot of chick crumbs) and give them clean water (they will poop in the water they've no self-control).
But now they're getting leggy. They want to play and flap about. They can jump and they're inquisitive.
Chickens don't live forever. In fact, they have incredibly short lives.
I've just lost Barbara. Or, to give her her full name, Barbara Mark II. She was named five years ago, after an almost identical chicken we lost a short while earlier. She was the only hybrid we bought that day. I'd been to the farm with the intention of buying some Cream Legbars - some green/blue egg layers, but somehow Barbara Mark II found herself in a box and came home with me.
She seen lots of changes in our field. She's seen other chickens come and seen the older ones die off. She's lived with electric fencing, with a various array of chicken houses. She's hunted for worms and got in the way as we dug a base for the new, static, chicken run.
She was always the first one, annoyingly, to make her way through the field gate and into the garden. I'd turn around from the kitchen sink and find her, looking at me, from the patio doors. Or, I'd hear a noise, the tinkle of pebbles flying everywhere I later discovered, when I was sitting in the lounge. It would be her, looking for interesting treats in the stones between the brick work of the house and the patio edges.
I spoiled her. If she was at the patio window and no other chickens were about, I'd pop into the fridge and take out a nice juicy grape for her. She loved them. A couple of gulps and it would be gone. And then she'd be back for another.
I didn't mind spoiling her. Early last year she'd survived a fox attack. After a duck disappeared the day before I put everyone on lock down. But the cunning fox had still managed to squeeze into the door of a run and pull Barbara out with her. I came out the back door, after my lunch, just in time. "Hey," I'd shouted. And DogFace and I gave chase. Barbara was dropped and I cuddled her, waiting for both our heart rates to calm down, willing her not to die of shock, before placing her in the darkness and security of the chicken coop. She came out a few hours later, none the worse for wear bar a few missing feathers.
Last weekend, Easter weekend, she was drenched. The other chickens had been wet, too, but they'd fluffed back up again in the sunshine. She was just shivering in a corner, hunched over, tail down.
I scooped her up, I knew she'd not been quite right for a while, and held her in my arms, watching in wonder as she let out a small sigh and closed her eyes. I covered her in the dog's towel and held her, then when I realised she still wasn't drying off, I blew her gently with my hairdryer. Then placed her on the boiler, which was emitting a gentle heat, to keep warm.
Sadly, after a few ups and downs during the week, Barbara went to sleep for the last time last night. I knew it was going to happen. I picked her up yesterday and gave her a cuddle. She closed her eyes and relaxed, curling her feet around my fingers.
When I checked on her later her breathing had changed. It won't be long, I thought. But I left her where she was. And that's where I found her this morning.
I was expecting it, but, even so, a sudden tear came to my eye.
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I didn't deliberately set out to create a girls only chicken run. I thought cockerels looked glorious, strutting about in the sunshine. Chest puffed; proudly looking after his harem.
In fact, I thought if I did have a cockerel it would be the noise issue, the early morning crowing, that would convince me not to have one.
With drakes this wouldn't be an issue. Because their quacks are softer, though no less urgent, than the females. A constant wack-wack, wack-wack as they walk about rather than a QUAAAACKK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK of the more rowdy females.
But with six years of keeping ducks and chickens you learn a few things.
Like, a cockerel doesn't just crow in the morning. It crows all day long.
But, it turns out, the noise a cockerel makes can be the least of your worries. They can cause no end of damage to your hens if they're feeling a little amorous.
Ok, so the pros of chicken-keeping in the summer is that I can just pop on a pair of flip-flops, walk out the back door and Get On With It.
In the winter I have to wrap up, pull on wellies, put on a hat and find the second glove from the pair that my dog has wandered off with. And the floor in the utility gets muddy oh so quickly.
But the summer time means I get bitten by night flying insects (and day flying). I think I currently have about twenty bites on my left leg alone.
Wincey the chicken was broody. She had been making quiet cluckling sounds for a few days and I'd been crossing my fingers that this meant she was thinking about becoming a mother again. But now she was refusing to come out of the nesting box.
This was good news. We'd recently lost some of our ducks and only had one left. DuckFace had the company of the chickens but would love someone to go swimming with again. I knew, before Wincey became broody that we'd try for some ducks. Specifically Indian Runner Ducks. The comical and beautiful ducks that don't fly but walk upright, like penguins.
For five years I’ve been watching ducks, literally, shake their tail feathers. As we inherited them with our house we’ve had ducks longer than we’ve had chickens, our cat and our dog.
Sadly, we no longer have the original trio – Vanessa, Jemima and Neville. We actually currently only have the one duck. Her name is DuckFace (not as pretty a name as the originals!) and she is the last of the quartet of ducklings we had four years ago.
Over the five years we’ve had a total of ten ducks. It sounds like we’re a bit careless with them – eight have died, only one survives and one we gave away. But in the beginning the adults ducks were practically wild. They were used to fending for themselves and refused all offers to keep them safe. They thought we were the dangerous ones. And by doing so they left themselves wide open to the fox.
We’ve learned the hard way how to keep them safe from predators.
"Any eggs?" asked one of my regular customers, hope on her face. "No, sorry," was my reply. Every time. She gave up asking after a few weeks. It was frustrating. The chickens had never done this before. One or the other would continue to lay throughout the winter months. But now, with a larger proportion of pure breeds who stopped laying when broody, moulting or when the days had little sunlight, and, in turn (I'm sure) influenced the hybrids, we were lucky to get one a week.
Then, finally, a few weeks ago, we had our first dark brown egg. It was one of the new chickens. Then there was another. Then a white one, a blue/green one. More brown. All of a sudden we had a dozen.
Have you read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith?
I don't recall reading it as a child, so read it for the first time a few years ago.
"Goodness, Topaz is putting the eggs on to boil! No one told me the hens had yielded to prayer. Oh, excellent hens!
And this is the line I thought of when the eggs finally appeared.
I shouldn't have held his foot. We were on a mission. The four of us. Myself, husband, son and daughter. We'd left the brightness of the house; the laughter on the TV ceasing as we closed the door and stepped outside into the darkness. I urged my husband to hurry up. He had the torch yet was straggling behind at the back, making our shadows loom up menacingly. I urged him again. It would not do to step on a hedgehog.
Our mission was to move the cockerels from the coop nearest to the house, to the one we'd moved earlier that day down the bottom of the field. I'd covered it in tarpaulin and tree branches, their dead leaves languishing; fluttering slightly in the breeze. I wanted to soundproof it yet still allow the air to circulate.
For the last week one of the cockerels had been crowing. Slightly hesitant at first, he became louder and prouder as the week went on. He seemed to strut, bossing the other two cockerels, keeping them in their place. And, when he felt like it, he'd jump on top of one of the girls. His youth only then showing as the girls turned on him, pecking at him and he would flee, squawking, confused.
I would watch him walking around the field during the day. He'd stop, his feathers around his neck would rise, he'd extend his neck and open his mouth to crow. It was a lovely sound. But I was anxious. The other two would start crowing soon, too. Our neighbours are not far away. And too many cockerels would create tension and fighting.
Every morning I'd wake early. Not because of the crowing, although that would start soon enough. But because I didn't know what to do with them. I advertised on a website but there was no interest. And I even thought about finding someone to kill, gut and pluck them.
At that stage I thought I could eat them.
That was before I held his foot.
But when I went out during the day they were the first to come running towards me. Obviously it was cupboard love. When I reached out to them they wouldn't come close. Not even for corn. Their mum, Wincey, was fiercely protective of them when they were chicks. We weren't allowed to touch and if I picked one up she would fly at me. I only did it once or twice and fortunately there was a barrier between us.
So I'd never held them properly. And certainly not as adults.
Tonight though, on this mission, I would have to. We were, after all, moving them.
We opened the back of the coop and my husband shone the torch inside. There they were. The three boys, and their sister, Trixibelle. Perched happily, ready for sleep.
They were not amused as I picked the first one up. My son grabbed the second. Oh the squawking. Their collars ruffled up. Shout, shout, shout.
"Let him grip your finger," my son said. His had calmed down as we walked slowly down the field. I did as he instructed. Placing my finger on the soft underside of the cockerel's foot. His toes immediately curled around my finger. His squawking stopped and his feathers around his collar went down. It was like a baby's grip. I felt a connection with the bird. I knew he was scared and wanted to reassure him.
Just five months or so earlier this year I'd carried the fertilised eggs carefully and placed them underneath Wincey. I'd watched, awestruck, when these boys entered the world. The first one breaking out of his shell I managed to capture on film. Every hour I would pop down to the shed, to check on their progress. The first time they came out of their little house. The first time they came out of the shed and stepped on grass. The first time they met other chickens. I was there throughout.
I was reluctant to let him go, but carefully, I placed the cockerel in my arms into the coop with his two brothers and they were silent. The darkness calming them. In the morning their crowing could not be heard from our bedroom. Result. I walked down to release them. Hesitantly they stepped out and we herded them back up the field to their food and water. One stopped to crow on the way.
We repeated the process the following night. It was working a treat.
But then, the following day, they went to their new home. The man I'd been in touch with who said he could take them was ready to collect.
My stomach sank with sadness. I should not have held his foot.
But it's ok, really. They've settled in. I can see their progress on facebook. And the rest of the flock are a lot calmer now they've gone. I feel the girls are saying, thank goodness for that.
Even so. I shouldn't have held his foot.
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