Charles & Dee's News

Hooray! We have chickens. At last I have the utter joy of going out in the
morning to let out " My Girls!" and peek into the nesting boxes and
ee if there is an egg-Bliss!!!

Rosie and I went on a mission and purchased 4 lovely brown hens ,we did
rather like the idea something a little fancier however "Farmer
McDonald" only had brown hens in so that was that. I must say I have had
Bantams, Wyandotte,
Bluebells, Blackrock’s etc but our brown hens have proved to be very very
friendly.

I was meant to have a hen house for my 40th but time slipped by and now at
42 years old I had to take matters into my own hands. The boys were out and
Rosie and I found the old puppy kennel. We reckoned with a bit of TLC it could
be a very fine ,if not rather small hen house. We set forth with great
enthusiasm... but we soon realized we were getting a bit out of our depth a
call to our lovely local joiner was required. Stuart laughed he said "how
long have I got to attach the roofing felt, Give it a door and add some legs?”
Rosie then declared we were off to Haydon bridge to Farmer McDonald to collect
the hens now " No pressure "then he replied! Stuart was a star and
rose to the challenge I had a funny feeling even though we offered to help that
he would most probably be happier on his own. We left to get the chickens and
Stuart said to call and collect the hen house on our way back.

Farmer McDonald is a fantastic character and not only did we collect our
hens but we had a great time seeing his horses and pigs etc....we set off with
our four hens "coffee, cream, coco and caramel" in a box in the boot.

We dashed back and collected the little house and excitedly filled the nest
boxes with straw and put our chickens in their new home.

I wasn’t too sure how Charles would react but he laughed not only at the
fact we had got chickens but at the fact Rosie and I had made a puppy kennel
into a hen house.

All was well the electric fence on the chicken happy until one dark night
and Foxy loxy the swine got in and got two of my chickens not only did he do
that he left my favorite one Caramel with a hole in her thigh!!!!! However with
some TLC and some magic antiseptic spray we have she was remarkably perky.

We were thrilled that caramel was bright eyed the next day and we decided to
replace our lost chickens firstly so our existing chickens would mix with them
as soon as possible and also so that the Fox wouldn’t get the better of us.

Another trip to Farmer McDonald followed and this time we got three hens a
little older and already laying. Farmer McDonald was busy as his Mare was
foaling and we were helped by a very charming young chap who we got chatting
to. He must have noticed that I had " Il take any poor sad creature"
stamped on my forehead as he remarked "we have just got three Ducks in
have you seen them?".............

You guessed it we took a few glances at these dear little Call ducks that
were very dirty” they will look great after a bath " he said.

He was true to his word for sure enough we put them in the stable with a big
heap of straw and water and a very handsome Drake emerged with two beautiful
white ducks and a pale "duck egg blue" egg!!!!!!

This minor lapse in my sense of reason resulted in a major effort on the
carpentry front as we then had to convert a large "Log box" we had
into a bigger hen house so that the Ducks could have the old smaller one as
their house. Hector set to work with a friend and what resulted was short of a
miracle inside...five nesting boxes. pillars made from some spare staircase
spindles with perches on top, a divided area to eat with lovely arch doorways
and a great drawbridge style door Perfect.!

The Ducks also got a half barrel sunk into the ground to swim about in....

Now behind the electric fence live in harmony. Poppy , Ruby the pigs with
five hens and three ducks. The hens are all laying now and we have had
five beautiful blue duck eggs. I feel very lucky indeed.