Nocturnal Integration

After introducing the bantams to the hens yesterday, and observing a joust for the pecking order (“joust” is probably the wrong word; “rout” is closer to the mark), I crept out after dark last night to see how things were going.  Three of the hens and two of the bantams were nestled on top of each other in the nesting box.  Lucky, our hen at the bottom of the existing pecking order, and the two smallest bantams, who are at the bottom of the new pecking order, were perched next to each other in the main coop.  All was calm.

This morning when I went out again, the stand-off had resumed.  How strange that my newly married birds are happy to snuggle up after dark, but not during the day!  There again, I suppose quite a lot of marriages work on that premise!!!

New Arrivals

 

Two weeks ago my very kind cousin, James, donated these four bantams.  This donation was much to the gratitude and even relief of his wife, who feels the same way about chickens as mine!

The brown one is a pure breed Blue Laced Wyandotte; the white one a cross between a Blue Wyandotte cockerel and a white Cochin; and the two blue ones a cross between the same cockerel and White Spangled Hamburgs.

They are far more timid and flighty than my existing birds, and I clipped their wings immediately on getting them home, for they are much closer to discovering flight than the others, too.

These birds are a lot smaller than the existing flock.  Integration is an issue and is being managed carefully.  For the first two weeks the new birds were living in a “pen within a pen”, created with a bit of wire fencing which can be seen to the left of the photo.  The two sets of birds have been living with each other, but the larger hens have not been able to get at the smaller bantams.  I am hoping that they have been getting used to each other, and that their full integration will not be as vicious as it might otherwise be.

That full integration is taking place today.  The “pen within a pen” has been removed, and the birds are now going to have to live with each other.  So far so good.  There is an uneasy stand-off between the two groups.  The brown bantam is more integrated than the others, perhaps because it is the largest.  The white one is most certainly at the bottom end of the pecking order (which is still being established).  Tonight will be the “wedding night”.  Fingers crossed…

Fox Attack is Back

As I left the office today, I suffered the usual problem of forgetting exactly where I parked my car. As I walked the streets in the chill gloom of dusk I came face to face with a fox. She (for I think it was a vixen) was a healthy looking creature, proud and confident. Beautiful even. She was coming out of someone’s front path as I walked by. We both stopped, about a metre from each other. She looked at me indifferently, waited for me to walk on, and then emerged from the pathway, lingering on the pavement and taking her time to decide which way she felt like going.

There was a woman in a porch a few doors down, waiting for a door to be answered. I made a comment about how bold the foxes are now. She agreed.

When I got home I asked if our moulting chicken had been locked up for the night. I normally do this and it normally has, but tonight it hadn’t been. “Well the foxes are out tonight,” I said. I grabbed my torch and set off to the back of the garden.

I found her under an arch, decapitated and the body still warm. She was a lovely little bird, this one, and her new feathers had grown to the point that I was going to put her back in to the main enclosure this weekend. For the past few days she had been kept away from the rest of the flock because they had been pecking her. She had been housed in the “isolation ward”, a converted guinea pig hutch. Each evening we would visit her and lock her up in her hutch. On one occasion she was even in there waiting for us. Clearly, she had made her way back home this evening, too. The fox had dragged her out and killed her, making off with the head and leaving the rest behind. I will miss this bird. Over the past few days, watching her new feathers emerge bit by bit, I had grown very fond of her.

I live in suburban London. I remember the move to ban fox hunting, and the marching of the animal rights groups and the Countryside Alliance. The arguments went further than the humanity or otherwise of fox hunting. The debate polarised. You were either a fox killer or a fox protector. Many people started feeding foxes when they didn’t before. I remember also, more recently, when a bold fox stole into a house in suburban London and mauled two twin babies. I watched the news with a feeling of ironic sadness, seeing the local people calling for a cull of foxes in London. How many of these people were in favour of protecting foxes at the time of the marches, I wondered? How many had been feeding foxes in their back gardens each evening?

I don’t like foxes; they kill my chickens. I don’t like fox feeders; they think they are being animal friendly towards harmless, cuddly, maligned creatures, when really they are strengthening a growing population of predatory animals whose natural inclination is to kill.

Yet really I have only myself to blame. It is my duty to ensure that the chickens are locked up each night and this I acknowledge.

Hen Pecked

One of our hens has chosen the late run of warmish autumnal weather to moult.  I first noted a bare patch on her neck last weekend.  Yesterday, when I went to collect the eggs, I found her in a more profound staet of nakedness:

Moulting at this time of year is quite normal, and I wasn’t too worried.  Unfortunately, when I went back in today, she was not looking quite so perky.  A Good half of her bare patch looked raw, and even bloodied towards the rear.  As I stood and observed, the other chickens would intermittently run over and have a peck.  She reacted in various ways.  Typically, a lot of cowering went on (this is the chickens’ first and most often used line of defence), and some running away.  However, there was also quite a lot of pained noise coming from her when the raw areas were attacked.  It seemed clear to me that she was not going to last amongst the other chickens.

Tonight she is in the “isolation wing”, a converted guinea pig hutch.  She is fine, and I think just needs to alone to have her moult and grow some new feathers.

To the Person who has been Stealing our Wood

To you it might just be a bit of wood, and also a laugh at the thought of creeping into someone else’s porch in the evening and stealing something that they appear to have lots of anyway.

To us, it is the thought that these were trees which grew in our garden, that we cut those trees carefully, cut the wood into logs (which is backbreaking work), then split those logs with an axe (which is also backbreaking work), that our kids have then helped to carry the logs to a store, then that we have left them to season for two years before we can burn them to heat our house. To us, when you steal that wood, you also steal our work, our effort, a little bit of what we have strived to make for ourselves.

You don’t steal wood from a petrol station forecourt because you would be caught and prosecuted. You don’t take it from the wooded areas around here because that would be too much effort, and then you would have to season it for a year or two, and that would be a bother. You take wood from our house because it’s easy, because it’s there, and because you think you can get away with it with no penalty. You do not care, or think to care, about the people you are stealing from.

We have removed all of the wood from our porch. That is a pity, because we really did like it there. We haven’t done it for your good. We have done it so that I do not catch you in the act, so that I do not grab the nearest log, and so that I do not hit you with it, thereby ruining my life and the lives of my wife and children. Please, don’t for one moment think I care about you in all of this. I really don’t. Just like you don’t care about the people you are stealing from.

You might find it strange that I appear to feel so passionately about wood. I don’t. I feel passionately about you taking something which does not belong to you, and which our family worked hard at to make, and which you think you can just steal on a regular basis because it’s there. But I don’t expect you to understand that in the least, because if you did you wouldn’t have taken it in the first place.

Labelizer

Yesterday I wrote my first blog post in weeks (actually months).  It commented that my wife was coping very well with our chickens having the run of the garden, even if they tended to poo everywhere.  Today my wife read this post.  The chickens are now confined to quarters.  I think that perhaps my wife had turned a blind eye to the chicken poo.  I think that she had coped well doing this, but that she really had to work hard at it.  I think my open acknowledgement of yesterday caused her to focus on the truth of the matter, and that my actions meant it could be ignored no longer.

My mother-in-law came round and got involved.  Now they are plotting.  They plan to fence off a section of our garden adjoining the chicken enclosure, so that the chickens can have an outside run where they can poo without causing undue distress.  So be it.  I know which battles are worth fighting.

On a different subject altogether, after last year’s cider success we’ve scaled up production somewhat this year.  So far we have a batch of cider and perry in the bottle, and three further batches (two cider and one perry) in demi-johns and bubbling away.  I’ve been trying to find some bottle labels so I can make these fruity delicacies look even more appealing to the unsuspecting guest, and have come up trumps.  The website is http://www.beerlabelizer.com/ and it is absolutely great.

We have made up labels for our cider and perry.  The cider is called, perhaps rather unimaginatively, “Granny Smith’s Revenge”.  This name tends to indicate that the cider is strong (which it isn’t), and that it was made with Granny Smith apples (which it wasn’t).  I gave the honour of naming the perry to my son.  He decided to call it “Ben’s Merry Perry”.

The labelizer is quick to use and you just need to print the labels off with a laserjet printer, so that the ink doesn’t run.  As to sticking them to the bottles, this is done with nothing but milk.  This may sound strange but it works a treat.  Simply smear milk on the back of each label and press it to the bottle.  That’s it!  I was a bit doubtful at first, but it works a treat.

Redemption

This is my first post for quite a few weeks.

First and foremost, the chickens are in fine fettle.  I have persuaded my wife to let them out every day, and things have been going well.  My wife has smiled and overlooked the fact that they are creatures of poo.  They poo on the York stone just outside our back door, and this week I slid in it and nearly broke my neck.  My wife overlooked their folly (actually I’m not sure whether that’s a good sign or a bad sign).  They poo all over the grass that my children run across in their bare feet.  My wife overlooked this too.  They hop up on our kitchen window cill and poo at us whilst we eat our meals.  My wife has even been prepared to overlook this.

Unfortunately, they also poo’d over my wife’s favourite piece of garden furniture.  I’m not sure they’ll be let out again any time soon.

There has been some good news about my defective personality.  Some 20 years ago, the Archdeacon of York concluded I had “warped moral values”.  I referred to this in my last post.  This weekend I happened to meet the very same Archdeacon (now retired).  It was not a planned meeting but it was good to see him a second time.  He remembered meeting me previously, but gave no indication that he remembered me as having warped moral values.  I had a good chat with him and his wife, and was very pleased to overhear him afterwards as referring to me as a “nice chap”.

Hail, redemption’s happy dawn!

There again, I was eavesdropping on him talking to someone else, so maybe my warped moral values are still with me…

Finally, a picture.  A friend of mine is walking the Capital Ring, and yesterday I joined him for a 12 mile stint close to my neck of the woods.  As we walked through Harrow School I saw this amazing view, naturally framed on three sides by the school buildings.

If you click on this photo it will, after a while, come up on its own on your browser.  If you then click on it again you can zoom in and look at the skyline.

Marathon Mutterings

On Sunday the whole family went to support my brother-in-law, who was running the London Marathon.  We stood at mile 19, waiting for his yellow shirt to come running towards us at (approximately we hoped) the appointed time.

We got there early, though the marathon was in full swing.  There were cheering and clapping crowds, yells of encouragement, drum bands, you name it.  It was noisy.  We managed to find a spot at the barriers with a good view of the approaching runners.  I accept it was a bit quieter in the spot we found.  We stood next to a woman who had broken her leg or foot and who sat in a wheelchair watching with her camera.

I have never run the marathon, but I know plenty of people who have.  I am always told that the shouts of encouragement from the crowd as the runners plough past are a real drive, and that the runners are very grateful.  So as I waited for Geoff to turn up I clapped, and as runners approached with names on their vests, I yelled encouragement to them, calling out their names.  “Well done, Rob, keep it going!” I would yell out, or “Come on Edith, keep it up!”.  Some (probably half of them) smiled, or waved, or gave me a thumbs up, or even yelled out a thank you.  Edith was very kind, giving me a wave, a smile and a thank you!  The people I shouted encouragement to included the TV chef Michel Roux Jr, who had “Chef” written on his shirt, and was wearing a baseball cap.  “Well done Chef!  Keep going!” I yelled out before realising who it was.  He lifted his head with a smile of acknowledgement and only then did I see his face under the rim of his cap and realise it was that chef.

Anyway, after about 20 minutes, the woman in the wheelchair turned round and looked up at me and asked me to give it a rest.  I was quite taken aback.  “Oh.  Sorry,” I mumbled, not sure what to say, and I stopped.  Five minutes later I managed to move back a few places and so started clapping and shouting out again.  The bloke next to me joined me, and between us I think we managed to pick up most of the field as they ran by.

I think I’m rather upset at this woman.  She sat there, not clapping or offering any sort of encouragement at all to anyone, and then asked me to give it a rest.  How unfair is that?!?  How can she watch a marathon amongst an absolute throng of cacophonous thunder (well, it was a few yards up the road) and expect those supporting the runners around her to show their support in mute silence?  There again, she was in a wheelchair nursing a broken foot and therefore her head was probably nearer my clapping hand than many others.  But even so, I am highly annoyed at being asked to stop my support.  Am I over reacting?  Does she have a point?  Do I have the right to be morally outraged?  (Many years back the Archdeacon of Beverley (I think it was the Archdeacon, anyway) once told his son, my best friend, that he considered me to have “warped moral values”.  Thus, whenever I feel moral outrage now I always wonder if my outrage is also warped and therefore misplaced due to my moral deficiencies.  (I find irony in the fact that his son went on to publish a book in which a semi-human creature escapes on a tropical island somewhere to go around ravishing the local women, much to their delight – how does the Archdeacon like that for some moral value, I wonder?  Anyway, I digress)).

Well, whether or not I am justified in feeling annoyed by this woman’s annoyance, it is how I feel.  It’s not fair.  It’s not sporting.  These people have trained hard and for a long time.  They run for good causes.  They deserve vocal support.

I shall just have to add this woman to the growing list of people who should apologise to me if they ever met meet me again.  The older I get the more that list grows, and she’s on it.

And as for Geoff?  He was rather upset to run the marathon in 4 hours and 5 minutes, missing his target time by those 5 precious minutes.  Perhaps if he’d had some more vocal support…

Ding Ding Round Two

After last night’s fight (see yesterday’s post) I got up this morning and there they were again, in exactly the same spot, still fighting furiously!  This time the move of the moment seemed to be gouging each others’ eyes out with their sharp beaks.  Cosmo, who tends to come in for the night, watched with me.  He grew quite excited and jumped up onto the window cill to get a better view.  The starlings startled and flew off.  I wonder if they’ll be back again?  How strange to choose a bit of concrete path, right by a boxed-in corner of the house, to have their fight?

I let Cosmo out.  He sat on the battleground, looking up at the apex of our gable wall where there is a starling nest.  I wonder if, by some feline sixth sense, he thinks one (or both) of the starlings come from that nest?

Fight!

I told my friend Mike today that I would try to stop blogging with bird photos.  This blog is supposed to be about chickens but of late I seem to simply be posting photos of birds.  So today was it.  The End.

But then, about two hours later, I arrived home with my new resolve to find two starlings having a terrible fight right outside our kitchen door, about three feet away from where we were standing!  My wife and I watched in equal measures of fascination and horror, as each tried to ram its sharp beak down the other’s throat, and as they thrashed over and over on the concrete.  Cosmo, our cat, also watched.  Calmly.  Deb and I were convinced one had the upper hand and had drawn blood.  I ran into the study to grab my camera and when I got back they were still at it and at each other.  I took a few shots through the window, but the flash was going off, not that the starlings noticed.  I decided to open the utility door (they were only a foot or so away from this) to try to get some better shots.  Cosmo clearly thought this was a grand idea, as he came with me and had to be shooed back to the kitchen; I could tell he fancied a piece of the action.

I opened the utility door.  The starlings didn’t notice and kept on fighting. But as soon as I poked my head (and camera) out of the door they saw me and flew off, one seeming to chase the other as they went.

It was a vicious fight.  I only have the photos I took from the kitchen…