Bonfires and Quails

The last few days there has been great works on site – two sheds on site are being demolished and are about to be replaced with a huge clubhouse!

As part of the shed demolishing, there are incinerators going all day to get rid of the sheds and any other wooden rubbish. The bonus is that in this chilly weather, its a hood place to be to get the circulation back in our hands and feet and to ward off frostbite!

The chickens are doing well – Masie has joined Lottie and Doris in needing regular checking of feet. Lottie’s feathers are slowly growing back in although she is still shedding lots of feathers. This is one confused chicken – she should have shed her feathers in September before it gets cold. I just hope she manages to get those feathers in quickly before it gets any colder. Her new feathers that are coming through appear to be striped but I don’t know whether these will disappear when they are fully out. More worryingly, Evie seems to be following Lottie’s example has has begun to moult. Cliff informs us that there is a three week delay between moulting and egg laying so hopefully Lottie should get back to laying soon!

I am also wondering whether I might be able to persuade my other half to get a few quail in the summer. They eat very similar food to the chickens (although much less of it!) and lay bright blue eggs. True, you do need about a dozen to make one normal hen egg but they are tasty! If we did this we would need to get a new enclosure for them as they can fly properly, unlike our chickens.

The fox issue has taken another twist, as we have all clubbed together to buy a fox trap. The guys bought a brace a pheasant and loaded the trap but they didn’t tie the pheasant on securely enough, so Mr Fox got a free meal. The next night we got it. It was rather large and fairly rotund from all the chickens it has been scoffing. Despite this success, there appears to be another fox visiting so the trap has been reset…

The mud levels in the coop are rising so we have added extra wood and crates to get them off the mud. Yesterday we had a disaster with the coop padlock. Geoff and Cliff couldn’t find the key on Friday to sort out the chickens. When I went down to check them, torch in hand, I spent about 15 minutes looking for it. Nothing. So Cliff had to cut the padlock on Saturday so it looks like we need a new one. Personally, I think one of our girls has eaten it….