R.I.P Little Dovey

Friday was a very sad day. My next door neighbour arrived at the back door wondering if I had lost Constance, our white Chicken. Knowing I had just thrown some corn for her in the pen and she was fine I was a little confused as to why she asked. She had discovered an eruption of white feathers and a mauled mess outside her garden gate and assumed that the poor little thing had been Constance. To my horror I discovered it was my little white Dove,Dovey.

I had taken some photos of her a couple of weeks back to post onto my pages here but had not had a chance to download the pictures. She was a really lovely little character that was becoming tamer and tamer by the day. I would scatter a hand full of mixed corn in the stable yard for her every morning and she became so used to this little routine that she would come and look for me and tap on the cat flap for me to come out in the morning. Dovey was the only white Dove left out of eight. The others had been shot by a young reprobate who is no longer part of the farm I am very pleased to say. She was very timid at first but became more trusting by the day.

There was one particular morning when I was a little upset and had been hanging out the washing on the whirligig. She had been perched at the top of it in the centre and would be turned round like a carousel when I needed to make use of a new section of washing line, very sweet. I held out my arm and stretched my finger and called to her. She flapped up quite close to my hand at first about three or four times and then she made contact and came to rest on my fingers. It as was a magical moment and for a second we really connected. As I had been a little sad on that particular morning I saw the incident as a little sign of hope, her being a little Dove and all, now my hope and my Dove have gone.

Butter wouldn't melt and I am sad to say that I think this is the culprit!

The Broody Bunch

Things are a little unsettled in the chicken house of late. Lavender has decided to go broody and sit on anything even slightly egg shaped. The thing is, she will set Betty off down the same path if she's not careful as Cochin's are very prone to the broody bit!

Constance is a little confused as she always lays her eggs next to the others that are already there, except that Lavender is all spread out over them and Constance can't see where she's meant to lay. Not the most intelligent of Chickens, in fact she comes across as a little nervous librarian spinster, but she's a great little layer and very much loved.

I gave the hutch and pen a good clean out at the weekend with Mum's help. The green monstrosity over the roof are two waterproof picnic table covers. The roof started leaking a couple of months ago and they seem to work a treat. I had to de-louse the chickens and as they are so big and heavy now it's almost impossible trying to do it single handily. Basil is the size of a medium turkey and trying to hold him upside down by the legs with one hand whilst he's flapping about is no easy task. The powder needs to be sprinkled and worked into the areas under the wings and all around their bottoms as they are nice warm snugly places where lice love to breed. Mum and I will certainly be louse free now as I think we got more on us than the chickens!

I was hoping that the big disruption and clean-out of the pen would kick the broodiness out of Lavender, it seemed to for a bit but as soon as someone else had snuck in to lay she was straight on the egg like a rat up a drainpipe! How do you stop a chicken from being broody? Any advice is welcome!!!

I made the mistake a few months ago of letting both Lavender and Betty continue with their broodiness and sit on an egg each. I really didn't think it would come to anything and we were 2 layers down every day as a result. To my amazement I heard chirruping one afternoon and sure enough one of the eggs had hatched and this beautiful little chick stood there and chirped it's little socks off. He was totally black and the egg next to it just had a beak poking out, it really was very funny.

I called my chicken man in Windsor and relayed the happy news and he advised me on how best to go about the rearing of the little darlings. Now as two hens were broody my main concern was rivalry over the chicks. If both chicks were heading for the warmth of one mother then the other hen may get jealous and actually peck the chicks to death. I found this news quite harrowing but kept a watchful eye anyhow.

The following morning I went to check on them and the other egg had hatched too. This little chap had a black back and a yellow tummy he was absolutely gorgeous and looked like a little penguin. When I got home from work that afternoon it was the saddest of sights. The little black chick had either stumbled out of the hutch or been tossed out and was laying on the mud to the side of the hutch and crawling with lice. He was still alive but only just. I rushed him inside and warmed him up in a bowl of warm water keeping his head above all the time. I then rubbed him dry and dusted him down with louse powder. He started to come back really strongly and had a good tweet for his mummy. I put him in the drying room as I had no special lamp (I really should have prepared myself better for chicks) and checked on him intermittently. He seemed fine and so to bed. I woke at about 4:40 am and went and checked on him. He was freezing cold and really struggling. I tried everything as I had done before to try and warm him up but he just went down hill and slipped away in my hands. I felt so bad, just a horrible start to the day. After several cups of tea and boxes of tissues later I went to let the girls in the hutch out only to find the other chick freezing cold, dead and tossed aside in the hutch with neither hen near him.

Nature can be so cruel. I learned a very big lesson from that whole ordeal. if your thinking of having chicks, be prepared for them, at the very least invest in a proper heat lamp and if you let the hen's sit on the eggs (they do make the best incubators) the chicks need to be removed as soon as they hatch. It's not worth leaving it to chance. It will distress the hens a little but they will get over it. The simplest thing is to collect the eggs every day and not to let the hens go broody! I think I shall have to have a word with lavender!

What a Plum!

I took a wander down to the tree line on the farm on Sunday. It was a beautiful evening and I sat at the base of an oak tree and had a think for a bit. In this particular tree line there are four fabulous plum trees, two red and two yellow. The yellow trees are massively more established and the branches are just dripping with fruit.

Dad discovered the tree last year and brought some samples back up to the house which were very well received, so I armed myself with my big green trug and ambled across the fields to the source.

My gatherings didn't last long though as the chaps really tucked into them like sweeties and there were four left in the end for chutney making! I shall have to grab the trug once more head off down the field. Other than having bowls of the little beauties around the house I made most of them into Chutney last year which was very well received I'm pleased to say! and the few jars I made didn't last any amount of time and a real winner at Christmas.

The yellow fruits are incredibly sweet and great for chutney's. The red ones are a little more tart and work better as puddings and jams having been sweetened up a little. I just love all the gathering of free food and turning it into something that can be preserved and used throughout the year. I have learned a lesson from last year though to make many more jars as whenever anyone comes to visit another jar seems to leave the house with them! I'll put the recipe for this on later as is too good not to be shared!

Blight in Blightey!

After having attacked the long grass at the weekend in and around the veggies, I noticed that some of the leaves on the potato plants had gone black and crispy. I put it down to the amount of rain we have had of late but was advised later by Janet, the 'growing things expert' from next door, that it was 'Phytophthora infestansa', a touch of the old blight, which was apparently the cause of the potato famine of Ireland in 1845 ...there you go, a little bit of history for you!

A healthy plant should be bushy, lush and green whereas the blight affected specimens will start to flop and look very miserable.

The best thing to do is keep an eye on it. If it starts heading for the stalks of the plant and they turn black, patchy and twiggy, nip it in the bud by cutting the plants nearly to the ground and start digging up the potatoes as soon as you can to avoid the disease spreading to the tubers.

By Thursday, the plants were looking even worse and totally unlike the lush green specimens they once were. I decided to lop the plants down and see if my efforts had amounted to anything. About a month ago I had some friends come to stay for the weekend and was very excited about presenting a homemade potato salad to compliment the BBQ. I'd had a good dig around beneath one of the plants with a garden fork only to find one small potato about the size of a conker! The others were barely the size of large peas even though the plants had been fully grown for sometime and recently flowered.

My efforts hadn't gone unnoticed and Mother Nature had rewarded me with a fine harvest of 'Harmony ' potatoes. The other variety I have growing is the 'Picasso' which has pinky shades over the skin. The Picasso variety have also contracted the blight, not as badly as the 'Harmony' variety, although they are beginning to turn that way now. I'm trying to leave them in the ground for as long as possible as it's going to take us a little while to get through this lot!

It's a great feeling digging for potatoes and just when you think you've got them all up you'll find another one ...and another one...

Once you've cut the plants down your supposed to leave them in the ground for a couple of weeks to let the skins harden. They looked pretty good to me though so we got stuck in that evening and they really were yummy and totally organic! fabulous!!!

The girls enjoyed the harvesting too and eagerly stood around waiting for a worm to come up in the dug soil. They are turning into very spoilt chickens but happy ones none the less! Constance (the white chicken) is beginning to get a little bolder and will come and snatch the odd worm out of my hand. Betty on the other hand is just a piggy and will wait right by my side, clucking at me to dig faster to find her another fat juicy worm!