Sallygardens Smallholding

Broody Hatches Her Eggs

Our Light Sussex hen hatched four of her five eggs a couple of days ago. Today they ventured outside for the first time and mother has been minding them proudly. Father has also been staying close by and keeping other interested parties in their place*! It hasn't all been good news though. Yesterday two of the chicks died. They must have wandered from the nest and couldn't find their way back in and mother hen was torn between keeping the two chicks still in her nest warm or following the other two around the shed. Perhaps we should have kept them all securely shut in the broody box for a couple of days. Sometimes these learning curves can be heartbreaking, especially for the children.

In the meantime one of our other two broody hens has been a bit silly. She got off her nest for a stroll and a feed which is perfectly normal and to be encouraged, but then sat back into the wrong box (empty with no eggs at all). By the time we noticed all her own eggs were stone cold. I don't know how long the eggs can be left unattended and remain viable, so we put her back in the right box and will hope for the best.

Life here has been on hold for a week or two recently. I found a lump in my breast and it's taken this long to have the relevant tests done, thank heavens I got the all clear on Thursday last. It's been an exhausting time and it will take a while to get back on my feet. I can't begin to explain the fear and heartbreak I felt at the thought of what might be about to happen to our family. The outcome could have been very different so I'm counting my blessings on a daily basis.

* 'interested parties'

Fox Attack & Ruffled Feathers

When you first get chickens everybody tells you that the fox will get them. We've had ours for a couple of years now  without any bother from predators (except a visiting dog that killed five). For quite a while we were very lax, leaving the chicken house open the odd night. Then  friends of ours lost all their chickens to something and since then ours have been religiously shut in every night.

A couple of weeks ago we lost one of our red hens. She disappeared without a trace and we came to the conclusion that she must either have gone broody in the hedge with a secret clutch of eggs or a fox got her. It's well known that once a fox finds a stash of tasty hens he'll come back, usually every day, until they're all gone. Yesterday I was just beginning to believe that the red hen couldn't possibly have been taken by a fox because we'd had no problems since. Three other hens have gone broody in the chicken house and because it's the season for it I expected to see the red hen emerge triumphant from the undergrowth any day now with chicks at her side.

Dan and I had been visiting our goats this morning and enjoying a good hearty laugh at the frolics of their kids on the tin roof. We walked up the garden path and both heard a curious noise. It was very obviously from a chicken, but was nothing like any of the calls we'd heard before. We both stopped to listen, looked at each other, then Dan sprinted up the path to the chicken field gate. I ran behind him and we could both see a flash of red fur and the erect ears of a startled fox .... Dan started bellowing like a man possessed and he disappeared into the hedge after the fox thrashing and shouting, doing his best to give it a real scare. Our dog bolted after him barking on the scent and because I was feeling a bit left out of the action I began to shout and screech to hopefully add to the terror of the prowling fox!

Pumped with adrenaline we began counting the chickens. Two of the broodies were still sitting tight on their eggs, but the third broody had disappeared. Out of eight of our chicks we only found four.  The rooster was in a terrible state. He was in the chicken house desperately trying to fly up onto the perch bar, but he kept falling hard on his side and was unable to even flutter six inches off the ground. He kept repeatedly trying and falling, his mouth was gaping and he was gasping for breath. I closed the door so he could calm down but he was in severe shock and I knew we could lose him any moment.

In the meantime Dan had found a huge mound of feathers scattered right across the field. There were so many feathers over such a large area we came to the conclusion that they must have been the remains of the four missing chicks and the broody hen. As we made our way back up the field we saw something white next to a clump of grass. It turned out to be two trembling chicks, hunched down in a bid to hide themselves. We carried them up to the chicken house and they seemed unscathed but the rooster was stilling gasping for breath and now just lying on the ground.

We made immediate plans to fence off a large section of the field for the chickens to free range in safely. I went to start making lunch and thinking about how to break the news to the children and Dan began to clear brambles for a new fence. A few minutes later he came bounding in all smiles ... he had found the final two missing chicks and broody hen in the undergrowth, so all hens were accounted for.

The rooster got to his feet and made a timid appearance. He soon stood tall and began to patrol his patch. We spotted a bare patch of skin on his leg and rear ... it seems he put up an amazing fight with the fox to protect his girls and offspring and that all those feathers scattered across the field belonged to him. I'd like to reward him a medal and a special dinner.

So what seemed to be a predetermined miserable ending actually turned out well. There have been a few things ruffling our family feathers too lately, and I really hope that the chicken's happy ending is a good omen for us.

Hatching Chicks

It's three weeks since the chicks emerged from their shells, you can watch one hatching on this video clip.

They come out all sticky with their fluff stuck to their skin but immediately begin to try standing up. A comical couple of hours follow as they dry off, fluff up and topple backwards and forwards on their little stick legs. They also begin to peck at the ground and soon find their sources of chick crumb and water. By the following day they are running about at high speed, preening their imaginary feathers, scratching the ground with their feet and nodding off for thirty second naps slumping to sleep in the most peculiar poses. After just a few days their true feathers begin to emerge at the tips of their stumpy little wings, and a few days later the tail feathers. The rate of growth is amazing, and so is their rate of consumption for that matter. A daily litter change, or sometimes more than that, is required to keep odours at bay! They now sleep for longer spells, all together, in a little heap.

They currently reside in a large box under a heat lamp in the spare bedroom. Their loud chirps and constant scratching and pecking sounds have become part of the household, but in only eight weeks or so they will be having their first ventures outdoors and will have to find their pecking order in with the rest of the flock.

Chicks Emerge

After a bit of a disastrous start we put some more of our chicken eggs into an incubator three weeks ago. The 'due date' was last Wednesday so we all skipped downstairs that morning and looked straight in to check if there was any sign. You can't imagine the squeels of delight when several of the eggs had tiny cracks in them and some sections of eggshell had chipped off. The sound of chirping was surprisingly loud even before any chicks hatched and we spent the next three hours glued to the tiny window on the incubator watching our first sticky damp chick emerge into the world.

There were family squabbles about who should carry the first chick or two, but once five were out there were plenty to go around. After about ten minutes to dry off in the heat of the incubator we began to move them to a cardboard box with chick grain, water and a heat lamp. For the following two days chicks were emerging every few hours, day and night. At first they can't stand up, but it only takes a couple of hours before they are up and walking with some comical falls backwards or forwards on their little legs. They even begin pecking at their feed and water as soon as they are upright. Within the day they are zipping about and preening their fluff.

So far fifteen chicks have hatched and all are doing well. There are nine more eggs in the incubator, two of which have been heard chirping, so I'm still confident at least some of them will hatch. The children are delighted with the whole affair but we have reminded them that some of these birds will be for the table. I'm hoping that one of our hens will go broody soon because although its been great fun to watch chicks hatching at such close quarters in an incubator, I'd rather they were raised by one of their kind and lived to enjoy the comfort of snuggling under their mothers wing.

Good News And Bad News

Which shall I start with? The bad. I know you are all waiting for news on the candling of our incubated eggs, as promised. Well we closed the shutters and turned off all the lights in the spare bedroom and held our breaths to see if the torch showed up the expected signs of life ... the first egg was placed on the candling torch ... and ... nothing. No telltale veins or dark spots were evident to suggest a developing embryo inside, and what we saw didn't fit the illustration in our book. Well incubators don't get a 100% success rate, so we moved onto the next egg ... nothing ... and the next ... all 18 eggs were duds. We were all so downhearted, especially the children. We began to wonder if our temperature and humidity sensors were correct or if we'd stored the eggs at too cold a temperature during the week we were collecting them prior to incubation. They were all removed and placed in a basket ready to go on the compost heap next morning.

Just before I took the eggs out after breakfast the next day I decided to crack a couple open, to see if there was any clue for failure, or sign of initial development. We all gathered around and you can't imagine how gutted we all felt, and how our faces dropped, when inside every single egg was a developing embryo the size of a large marble. The big eyes and little beaks were clearly visible, and their little bodies and wings. They had been developing after all, but for some reason our candling didn't show it up. For the rest of the day we all moped around knowing that we had removed perfectly healthy chicks from the incubator. 'Aaarrrgh', is all I can say. The mistake was understood and accepted by all but the youngest, who is still angry at me for being a chick killer.

And the good news? Well we need some after that! Another batch of eggs has now been placed in the incubator, this is day two. We won't even bother candling, we'll just wait the three weeks. And more good news? Today saw the arrival of three new birds to our flock. We got two silkie cross hens (one crossed with a speckled sussex, the other with a buff sussex) because they are the most reliable broody hens. Once they go broody the incubator will be out of action and mother nature can take over. The third hen is an 11 week old Rhode Island Red hen which is an ideal utility bird (reliable egg layer but also heavy enough for the table) for smallholders.

Hatching Easter Chicks

We have just set up an incubator in the spare room with fourteen hens eggs. That means we ought to have some of the cutest ever fluffy little chicks hatching out just after Easter (1st April to be exact) ... another lifelong wish granted!

Our Light Sussex hen began laying just over a week ago (every day so far) and we have been collecting her lovely pale eggs, along with a few of the red hens eggs too. Our beautiful red, but lightweight, farmyard  rooster has flown the coop to pastures new so now our mature Light Sussex rooster is the only contender for fatherhood in the flock. I bet you were thinking that last sentence was a polite way of saying 'he went in the pot'! But no, joy, the old rooster has gone to a friends farm where a suspected fox attack resulted in all but one of their sixteen hens being taken. He is to be new husband of the single remaining hen, but in a few weeks we will send over some of our incubated chicks to join his new hareem. And thus reveals the source of our incubator, on loan from our friends, in return  for some of  our hatched  eggs to replenish their flock. The perfect barter ... well maybe we have a slighter better deal in that we get to watch chicks hatching from their eggs.

As the twenty one day countdown commences to hatch day, the children are ecstatic and I am just uncontrollably excited! Fingers crossed, as this is far from a failsafe plan and success is not guaranteed*. We need to turn the eggs several times a day, monitor and keep constant at certain  levels the temperature and the humidity for 21 days. I have to say the whole thing is probably more exciting than when we watched our cat give birth to her kittens. Tune in again on day seven when we 'candle' the eggs to see which ones are developing normally. This involves shining a light through the egg to view the developing embryo inside. I promise to give updates along the way over the next three weeks and, if successful, will post far too many images for you of fluffy chicks emerging from their shells ... and maybe even a U-Tube video clip of the new arrivals.

* nitty gritty info ; For the first 18 days keep eggs at 37.5C, then reduce to 37C until hatching at day 21. Humidity levels at 52% until day 18, then increased to 75% until hatching. Turn eggs several times a day.

My First Chicken Kill

I've never had any trouble dealing with plucking and gutting poultry. My first memory of doing this was when I was about seven years old and my Mother was struggling with our free range Christmas turkey which had unexpectedly arrived with innards intact! After a few graphic phone calls to country relatives she, and my Granny, set about preparing the bird.   There followed several attempts to gut the turkey with intermittent swearing and fits of giggles, the process facilitated with a glass of festive sherry. Most of the insides were removed but some parts proved difficult. And so, under far from expert instruction,  my own little hand reached the parts grown ups couldn't. I don't think I did it again for twenty years, but I've always known I could do it. However, the part that comes before the plucking and gutting is another matter.

This past year we have had table birds here on our smallholding and also a few bantom roosters donated by breeders without the heart to kill them. More than one rooster in an average flock can lead to viscous fights to the death. Therefore breeders always have a surplus of male stock as they are in less demand and not very good at laying eggs!

So far its been Dan my husband who has dispatched any of our chickens. He doesn't enjoy doing it, but I respect him for being brave enough. I'll never forget the heartfelt solemn look on his pale face when he did the first one. It was something that touched him deeply. I have watched him do it with the hope that one day I might pluck up the courage to try too.  Last autumn I woke up one morning and decided that it was the day for me to practice what I preached, and to be involved from start to finish.

I picked my way through breakfast because my heart was in my mouth. I announced to the family that I planned to cook roast chicken for dinner and that I was off out to 'get a chicken'. Dan knew exactly what this meant and asked if I wanted him to come with me. I declined, thinking that being alone it may be easier to focus. I had read over the techniques in various books but the clearest and most humane, and the one that gave me the courage to try, was a dated 1980s (but still 100% relevant) publication ... Complete Book of Raising Livestock and Poultry By Katie Thear & Dr Alistair Fraser. Smallholders the world over will recognise Katie as the guru author of many livestock and smallholding bibles, and writes for the best smallholder magazines. I think that pretty much anything that she has written is worth reading.

So I left the kitchen with intent ... the time for reading and contemplation over. My heart was pounding and my hands shaking. I brought the scoop of morning feed and all the hens gathered around me in excitement. I spotted the young bantom rooster whose time was up and put down the feed. Immediately the birds flocked around which meant that I could pick up the chosen bird without any chase or worry on his part. In the same movement as picking him up under my arm and walking around the corner to where the other birds couldn't see me, I'd slid my left hand down around his legs and my right and onto his neck just below the head. Then a steady downward push and twist to the right with the right hand results in a clear feeling of dislocation in the neck. From picking him up to pushing the neck took about three seconds. The bird then spends a few seconds of flapping, trembling and flinching nerve endings.

It may sound ridiculous but my main fear was that I might hurt the bird. I wanted to pull hard enough to kill it instantaneously, but not so hard that the head came off in my hand. I was also terrified that once I started plucking, it may flutter back to life, meaning I'd only half done the job.

All my fears were put to rest. Killing a chicken changes something in you. It gives a deeper reverence for life, and the food we eat. It cultivates a huge respect for the life that provided us with food and as a result we dare not waste a single bit of our roast chicken. We say words of thanks before we begin the family meal. When the bones have been eaten clean, the carcass is used to make soup.

We won't be eating chicken every week. We will be eating chicken only on special occasions. The process is not easy... physically or emotionally, and so eating a chicken takes on a whole new meaning. They are saved for sharing with special friends, during special meals. Nor do I walk into a supermarket or butchers and pick up a packet of meat/poultry anymore without giving thought to the animal it came from, the life it had, and the death that occurred in order for me to eat it. Its just all too easy these days to eat meat without truly appreciating what happens before it reaches our plates. I think if people did know they would eat less meat, they would ask more questions about the welfare, or lack of it, that their meat has experienced.

Chicks Fully Grown But What About H5N1

Do you remember back in June we got two beautiful chicks? After a couple of weeks in the box they were big enough to stand their ground and join the flock. They are Light Sussex, a very popular breed for the smallholder. They are good layers but also quite a heavy bird so good for the table too if you can bring yourself to do the deed. Seven months later and here is the rooster in all his pride and glory. We are hoping that they raise some chicks of their own this summer, and with only the two of them its always a gamble as to whether or not a fox or mink might get them first.

He is quite a likable character, not at all evil as a few roosters can become. He never pecks at humans and tolerates me walking right beside him, albeit with a nonplussed glance in my direction. He has only recently begun to crow and this spring will be his first 'active' season.  You can see those little stubs on the back of his leg, they are his spurs and as they grow they are what he will use to grasp onto the hen ...  its not an altogether graceful act and despite the spurs roosters still manage to fall off.

He is cheeky too. In the mornings the dog is the first creature to get fed and rooster knows this, he waits, and sometimes he even tries to snatch some food from her bowl. Brave man.

I suspect there are many people out there with a few free ranging chickens like us, either on their farms or back gardens. As chicken flu is now present in wild birds over in the UK, isn't it our free ranging chickens that are at more risk from infection than the birds kept indoors? What do other poultry small scale keepers think, and are you doing anything different to protect your flock? Do you worry about letting your children handle pet poultry? How real do you think the risk is to backyard owners?

Hugh's Chicken Run

A worthwhile tv programme to watch, alas we don't have Channel 4 in our household, but those of you who do it  was on last night, but catch it again tonight and tomorrow at 9pm. Sign the petition to stop intensive farming of chickens. Keep up with the campaign and sign the pledgeometer here at River Cottage. Hugh, I wish you luck.

I originally included a banner supplied by river cottage with the pledgeometer attached, but the sound effects were just too much, so for the sake of sanity, just follow the text link!

Rejoicing the Return of Fresh Eggs

Thank you all for your kind words and helpful suggestions regarding the sudden egg production strike by our lovely hens. They suddenly stopped laying for about 10 days and we put it down to a fright they'd had from a dog. My gut instincts tell me this was the reason and just as suddenly as they stopped, they started again. I can't tell you how much we missed those eggs and how it pained me to buy a box from the supermarket! We are wallowing in the glory of sunshine yellow egg yolks which are not that colour as a result from colourings we add to their feed, as many commercial producers do.

And to those of you who were interested in my mention of pickled eggs ... I hope to show you how its done in a few days time (mind you, I work in Irish time, so could be in a week or two!).