Joshua and his girls, part 2

2014 started off with being a flock of seven chickens. That all changed during the summer. Two hens went broody, one opting to stay in Fowlty Towers for some peace and quiet, while Cecily found her way up to my hayloft. I did try moving her and the eggs into Fowlty Towers, but she was having none of that, and went off brood. However, before long she was back up in the hayloft with a new clutch of eggs. This time she got her way.

The results of this ended up with two chicks in the small coop,

 and a massive five in the hayloft.













Which meant that my flock had doubled in number. This was all very exciting, and a bit daunting. But I was hopeful that this would mean a chance to test my butchering abilities.

I waited for the downstairs chicks to have been out and about and capable of living with the other chickens before getting the others down. I should probably have got them down earlier, perhaps that would have been easier. Actually getting the silly creatures caught and moved was one part sneakiness, one part patience, and three parts luck. Once they were settled into Fowlty Towers they were kept in there for a week before I could let them roam, and even then it took some days for the the two mama hens to agree that they each could keep their own chicks. Joshua and I had to intervene several times; I am happy to say I think I did a better job than he did.

As they grew older it turned out the two were brothers, while the Hayloft Gang was two guys and three gals. This meant I would be getting four whole chickens for my larder. That got a bit of a setback during the autumn, when I discovered one of the cockerels missing and next day found him dead and with several wounds. I had guests at the time, and one of them had seen a dog running in my yard. We never heard anything, in spite of the flock being very voluble at times, but I strongly suspect that dog killed it.

A word to you dog owners - please be mindful when you are walking your dog in rural areas where free range chickens roam. And if you discover your dog has wounded or killed one, do the decent thing and 'fess up. I will say, it is possible this dog's owner never realised what it had done, so that is fair. But they shouldn't have let it roam freely around in my garden.

So when the end of 2014 rolled around I had 13 chickens in my flock. And was getting all excited at the prospect of home-grown chicken for lunch.

Joshua and his girls

As promised last week I am now going to introduce you to the Cluck Brigade. One of my dreams about homesteading involved chickens, ducks and quails. Almost three years ago I was getting frustrated I still hadn't any poultry and decided it was high time. So I bought myself a smallish chicken coop to get me started.

This turned out to be a wise move. Not long after I heard of somebody who needed to find a new home for her flock due to poor health (hers, not the chickens), and two days later I was able to pick up a rooster and three hens for no cost. They are Dansk Landrace chickens, Danish country breed. Supposedly one of the older, unaltered breeds of chicken, and can be traced back some 2000 years. They had been on my shortlist of breeds I was interested in.

Say hullo to Joshua.


So Joshua, Amelia, Beatrix and Cecily moved in to Fowlty Towers. The first few days they only had the small run for going out, but then we constructed a larger area with some netting and bales of straw. About a week later we were all ready for them to become free range.

I knew when they moved in that Fowlty Towers was on the small side for the four of them, and started building a larger coop. Unfortunately it proved to be too much for me to manage along trying to focus on eating and keeping the house, especially as that was the summer of house renovations, so dad ended up building the bulk of it. And it was fortunate that Pear Tree Lodge was being made, because one of the hens ended up hatching three chicks.

You can tell by the difference in wing development which order they were hatched

I had decided that any cockerels would be sacrificed in the name of discovering whether or not I could cope with slaughtering and eating my own chickens. And any hens would be sold off. As things turned out, all three chicks turned out to be female, and I was advised to keep them so Joshua had a larger flock to occupy him. Possible inbreeding on this level was deemed to not be a cause for concern. So at the end of 2013 I had a flock of one rooster and six hens.